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U.S. Announces Retreat From Iraq (And Syria)?
I did not expect this. Great – if true:
Nafiseh Kohnavard @nafisehkBBC – 13:57 UTC · Jul 15, 2021 Breaking
White house coordinator for MidEast, Brett McGurk has informed Iraqi officials that US troops will withdraw from Iraq.
“step by step”, sources tell me. “First combat troops will leave and then others” he has told his Iraqi hosts
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“Withdrawal from Iraq will not be like what happened in Afghanistan and it will be step by step. The schedule for this will be agreed during Iraqi PM’s trip to Washington” official sources told me
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And here is the statement from PM office that “mechanism for combat troops withdrawal” has been briefly mentioned in
link
The link is to a tweet of the Iraqi Prime Minister account which says (in Arabic) of the McGurk – al-Kadhimi meeting:
During the meeting, they discussed coordination and joint cooperation in various fields, and preparations for holding the next round of strategic dialogue between Iraq and the United States of America, as well as the mechanisms for the withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq and the transition to a new phase of strategic cooperation.
My first thoughts on this:
- The pressure the resistance has put onto the occupation force has achieved the desired result.
- No time frame is given but I expect weeks rather than months for the retreat to take place as the pressure will otherwise increase.
- Leaving Iraq likely also means leaving Syria as supplies and support to the U.S. occupied Syrian north-east and to the al-Tanf base at the border triangle of Syria, Iraq and Jordan runs through Iraq.
- The Kurds in north-east Syria must immediately start talks with Russia and the Syrian government. They will have to give up their autonomy or they will be eaten alive by Turkey. Expect them to (again) make the wrong decision. That means that the Syrian government, with Russian support, will have to use force against them. So be it.
- The U.S. occupation has denied the Syrian government access to two of its greatest resources, oil and grain. Syria will be much better off after regaining these.
- Expect a huge attempt by the usual hawks and the media to change the decision.
- The U.S. has dragged its feet over the renewal of the nuclear deal with Iran. Removing the troops from Iraq and Syria moves them out of the target area in the case of an eventual war on Iran.
While there are now first denials from some anonymous 'officials' I do believe that the decision has been made.
It is only rational. A further occupation of Iraq and Syria makes absolutely no sense.
In my comment 20 above I mentioned that Iraq and Syria withdrawal looks like a very big turn in US policy, if not strategy—and that there could in fact be much more to the Geneva summit, and subsequent quiet diplomacy, than has been made public.
Another commenter mentioned Thierry Meyssan’s analysis on this very subject, and which he delivered more than a month ago in two articles, which he called Yalta II.
In the first installment, published on June 15, he leads with this somewhat prescient statement, in light of these latest developments:
The United States is not the hyper-power it dreamed of being. It has endured a terrible military defeat in Syria with a hundred allied states.
Even if they continue to delude themselves, the time of reckoning has come.
Why a Yalta II ?
On the whole, I find Meyssan’s analysis to be quite insightful, which I must add, is not always the case with his writings, lol!
In this introductory segment he argues that the US, at this point in history, has no choice but to face reality [as I speculated in my above comment].
It’s noteworthy that he defines the current geopolitical era as spanning the last 30 years. Call it the unipolar moment, if you will.
After the confusion of 1991-2021, from “Desert Storm” to the “reshaping of the broader Middle East,” the United States’ ambition broke down in Syria.
It took several years for it to admit defeat. The Russian armies now have much more advanced weapons and the Chinese army has much more qualified personnel.
Washington urgently needs to take note of reality and accept an agreement otherwise it will lose everything.
It is no longer a matter of calculating what is best for it, but of undertaking everything to survive.
He further breaks down the apparent change of direction in terms of its most fundamental aspect: STABILITY.
It is important to understand that the main obstacle for the US is mental.
Since 2001, Washington has been convinced that instability plays in its favour.
This is why it is unabashedly instrumentalizing jihadists around the world, thus implementing the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski strategy.
However, the concept of a Yalta-type agreement is, on the contrary, a bet on stability, which is what Moscow has been preaching for two decades.
I will leave it here for now. The second installment is here:
Biden-Putin, a Yalta II rather than a new Berlin
My observation: as with any political analysis, there will be gaps and perhaps outright errors—and these can be very subjective, according to each reader. But on the whole, again, this take from Meyssan seems very lucid to me.
Posted by: Gordog | Jul 15 2021 20:16 utc | 36
Max, I already regret getting pulled into a ‘debate’ with you.
But I have to briefly bring things back to reality, since the dust you are kicking up is obscuring important points!
Your number 44 seems to conflate the idea of US and Russia embracing one another heartily and swearing eternal love for each other, with the realpolitik notion of finding a POLITICAL ACCOMMODATION!
There is a big difference. Nobody on earth, much less Meyssan, or myself, or anyone else, is claiming the former. While the latter, as appears to be happening would in fact be a very big change indeed!
Here is Meyssan again from his first segment:
Throughout the Cold War, each side publicly insulted the other, but they always got along under the table.
Historical research has shown that, although at any moment the agreement could have turned into a confrontation, the invective was rather intended to weld each side together than to hurt the opponent/partner.
Meyssan talks explicitly about RULES, written or unwritten governing a relationship, especially one as important as that between the two military superpowers.
Meyssan continues:
This system was never contested. It lasted until the disappearance of the USSR in 1991. Since then, the United States has claimed to be the only hyper-power capable of organizing the world. They have not succeeded.
Now, finally, after more than a generation of delusions, perhaps the US is finally ready to FACE REALITY. That would be very big news indeed.
And from Bhadrakumar:
The US Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield told reporters, “It shows what we can do with the Russians if we work with them diplomatically on common goals.
I look forward to looking for other opportunities to work with the Russians on issues of common interest.
And this, about Syria, which is the topic of this article:
The Russian Special Presidential Envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev who participated in the Astana trio’s talks later told TASS that Moscow and Washington are engaged in talks regarding a US troop withdrawal from Syria and the withdrawal “may take place at any time.”
Now please understand what I have been saying here, because it is clear that you haven’t been paying attention at all—and you continue to twist things into a MAJOR PRETZEL!
We do have MAJOR signs of a change of direction of the US—pulling out of Syria and Iraq certainly qualifies for that descriptor.
So does the shift in tone, and the literal flurry of US-Russian diplomacy lately.
Please be realistic and actually read and understand what people are saying, both here and in those links. Your objections are sounding more childish by the moment!
Posted by: Gordog | Jul 15 2021 22:54 utc | 46
So many excellent points being made, and a combination of them may be factors in efforts to dial back (still not convinced there will be a complete withdrawal) the US presence in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq. A couple of points I would add to the discussion:
First I think we must always remember some contextual realities which may give some guidelines for our analysis. Mainly, we must never forget that Biden was specifically chosen by the consortium of powers that be to be Trump’s replacement, for whom they pulled out all the stops to ram him through the primaries and then secure his election. Why Biden? Because he was the perfect empty suit; to the extent his mind still works, he has been a firm “war anywhere, anytime” kinda guy for his entire career, but he furthermore has always been a kept man and now in his declining years will be completely malleable and subservient to his masters’ agendas. The powers that be, which are actually a collection of power centers, could agree he was perfect for that, although once elected he has proven SO weak that he has been unable to provide a consistent compass to those same powers, whose interests have now begun to diverge, and the struggles and shifting alliances of those groups help explain some of the perplexing and often conflicting “decisions” of the administration.
So, to the extent there are draw-downs, it is not Biden’s idea, it is the consensus decision of the power centers, and absolutely not some sudden conversion to peacenikdom. With respect to Iraq, if we examine it from each power center’s POV: The CIA/State Dept. loves stirring trouble, but as more and more of the countryside was lost to the natives, Iraq was becoming less of a convenient base for extending their tentacles, and most of the “reconstruction” funds have already been skimmed, and they are eyeing fresh, still juicy targets. The Pentagon political brass will never want to leave anywhere, but again the “action” has already diminished enough that there’s not so much hay to be made in selling weapons systems and cementing one’s post-military career, so its cost/benefit analysis has probably overall shifted to loser; and the active military is out of things to bomb or shoot up, moral and recruitment are taking a big hit, and they can probably just feel the lifeblood draining from their services when being deployed everywhere as glorified police and hit/snatch men—and this is particularly if they are eyeing this as a choice between this winless status quo (name me one scenario in which anything would make things change for the better in any number of years) vs. getting a nice, fresh, popularly supported hot war. The mineral extraction interests are still enjoying their lucrative, unjustly obtained contracts, but they assume as long as Iraq remains a weak state, and especially if they feel they can count on continued bribes/support from the US for “their” candidates, and some mercenary Pinkertons to protect their operations, they don’t have a strong opinion about US troops remaining. The old-style conservative war hawks are not super happy, but a lot of them still apply some cost/benefit analysis, and the US has “achieved” everything it came to do (i.e., destroy what was perceived to be a relatively strong, stable nation which might threaten US or Israeli interests), and no number of years of more of the same will change that. So that really just leaves the Israeli lobby, who absolutely don’t care about costs to the US as long as they can use us to weaken all their neighbors and serve as alternative targets to them. Big Pharma and Big Finance don’t have a dog in the fight (well, so long as IMF loans aren’t really likely to be a big thing), and while the MIC likes to keep any war going, arms sales and expenditures have no doubt been seriously declining in Iraq for years, so as long as they assume tying off this war would give them fresh new opportunities, they’ll support that. I’m sure I’ve missed some, but you get the idea. Oh, and I suppose you could ad the Democrat party, which would probably prefer to have a war of their own (I mean, for this administration).
Seems like the consensus is that we need a new war. And the beauty is, to the extent there is negative feedback for any pullout (surrender), it can be blamed on poor old Joe, who will not likely be allowed to finish his term before being “retired” for cognitive decline. So, where next? There are so many pots being stirred, its hard to choose. I’m worried very much for Lebanon, because I think it’s finally dawned on the Israelis that they must de-fang Hezballah before they take on Iran, and that operation seems well underway. Likewise, the US is signaling that the years of neglecting South and Central America are over, and there seems a renewed push particularly with Cuba—presumably determined to be a softer nut to crack than Venezuela. Myanmar is probably due for some unwanted attention, too. But the obvious biggie is China. I know, it’s easy to say that’s impossible because, well, it’s so stupid, but history dictates that’s not a factor. The groundwork is not only laid but being added to daily. China is militarily strong, but by perverse logic there are those who will argue it must be knocked down before the window closes; that a mistake was made with Russia in waiting until they are too far superior to US/NATO (particularly in their back yard) to do anything other than irritate, so to “learn” from that means to attack China before the window closes and they become too strong. Also, I’d submit they are looked at as perfect for a US style “smash and grab” operation. Their main strength is still manufacturing, which are nice, soft targets for bombing/missile campaigns, and would (so the logic goes) take the wind from China’s sails and knock her back a few decades, giving the US the world lead again. Militarily there would be no plans for boots on the ground on the mainland, but China has her tempting targets such as Taiwan and Hong Kong, where it would be more difficult for China to throw the weight of her manpower. And there is probably a calculation that if enough “allies” can be assembled, such as Japan, Korea, and the Anglosphere, China would be more hesitant in challenging those. Oh, and setting back China serves other purposes, because after all after the US destroys a nation it feels it can leave or draw down and still control the nation which is impoverished and in disarray…but those damn Chinese come offering to help rebuild, and that’s a problem. So, insane as it is, I fear the primary target has shifted to China, and to the extent the US is indeed withdrawing, it may well be in preparation for a hot war with China, and sooner rather than later.
Posted by: J Swift | Jul 16 2021 15:58 utc | 99
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