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Unrest at US embassy reveals Iraqis are fed up with American ‘occupiers’
31 Dec, 2019 22:38 / Updated 7 hours ago
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Militant protesters besiege the main gate of the US Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq December 31, 2019. © REUTERS/Wissm al-Okili
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Anti-American sentiment has taken deep root in Iraqi society and ultimately fueled the fiery siege of the US Embassy in Baghdad, as the locals blame Washington for the sorry state of Iraq, military and political analysts tell RT.
Chanting
“Death to America” and
“Death to Israel,” a crowd of protesters surrounded the US diplomatic mission on Tuesday, angered by the death of two dozen Iraqis in US airstrikes against the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia over the weekend.
At one point, the mob set a checkpoint at the entrance on fire and attempted to storm the embassy. Dozens of people made it inside the heavily-guarded compound and delivered some damage to the property before eventually retreating as a force of US Marines backed by attack helicopters arrived as reinforcements.
Also on rt.com US sends reinforcements to its Baghdad embassy amid Iraqi protests over strikes
What unfolded in Baghdad
“of course, allows [us] to draw parallels” with the attacks on US diplomatic missions in Benghazi in 2012, Grigory Lukyanov, senior lecturer at the Moscow-based Higher School of Economics, told RT. Four Americans died in that attack, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.
Lukyanov also drew comparisons with the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran, following the 1979 Iranian revolution, when 52 American diplomats and staff were held hostage for 444 days.
“There’s nothing surprising” about the embassy in Baghdad being targeted by protesters, Lukyanov pointed out. The US has been directly involved in Iraqi affairs since the invasion in 2003 and the locals now blame the
“foreign sponsors” of the Iraqi government for its inability to improve their security and well-being.
Also on rt.com ‘Trump’s Benghazi’ or crisis averted? Embassy siege brings up parallels with Clinton’s darkest hour
The operation against backed Kataib Hezbollah, launched without any approval from Baghdad, became
“yet another sign for the ‘Iraqi street’ that the Americans are behaving like occupiers,” he added. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi called it an
“an unacceptable vicious assault” and said the US had violated the sovereignty of his country.
“The level of anti-American sentiment is as high in Iraq as it was in Libya and Iran. It’s not something that’s fueled by some military or political entities,” Lukyanov told RT.
The US don’t want their long-established relations with Iraq to be held hostage by the ongoing unrest.
President Donald Trump
declared the embassy safe on Tuesday afternoon and called the entire thing an
“anti-Benghazi.” The embassy building itself wasn’t breached and would not be evacuated, a State Department spokesperson said.
Also on rt.com This is not a warning, it's a threat: Trump declares US embassy in Iraq safe, says Iran will pay ‘big price’ for attack
“A full evacuation of the Embassy could be seen as severing all diplomatic ties, which is impossible” given the current level of US involvement in Iraq, Lukyanov noted. In addition to the embassy and other diplomatic offices, Washington has a major military presence on Iraqi soil, using it to project power in the region.
Sergey Balmasov of the Institute of the Middle East in Moscow, also believes that the withdrawal of the US from Iraq is unrealistic. Such a move would hurt President Donald Trump’s chances of reelection in 2020 and
“lead to Iran strengthening its position in the region.”
Unrest in Baghdad could instead create a pretext for the Americans to increase their military presence in Iraq to put additional pressure on Tehran and Damascus, Balmasov told RT, adding,
“I doubt that Trump will now send a massive 200,000 contingent into the country, which his predecessor Barack Obama earlier pulled out.”
Also on rt.com Iran slams US ‘audacity’ to blame it for Baghdad embassy storming
While Trump noted that Iraqi security forces had rapidly responded to his request to help the embassy, earlier reports spoke of them letting the protesters through. Either way, the
“the US-Iraqi relationship is further weakened by these events,” military analyst Scott Ritter pointed out.
The Iraqi opposition will now most likely
“double down on its political pressure on the Iraqi government to evict US military forces from Iraqi soil," Ritter told RT.
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US sending 750 troops to Middle East after Baghdad embassy siege – Pentagon
1 Jan, 2020 00:22 / Updated 42 minutes ago
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FILE PHOTO: Paratroopers assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division participate in a drill at Fort Bragg, NC, May 2017. © Reuters / US Army/Sgt. Jesse D. Leger
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Some 750 paratroopers from the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division are already on their way to Kuwait, and more may soon follow, after the US Embassy in Baghdad was stormed and nearly taken by angry Iraqi militiamen.
The 82nd’s alert brigade was ordered to deploy on Tuesday evening, Fox News reported, citing multiple Pentagon officials, shortly before Defense Secretary Mark Esper confirmed the move.
"The United States will protect our people and interests anywhere they are found around the world," Esper said, announcing the deployment.
The initial force has already departed Fort Bragg, North Carolina on board C-17 transports. The Immediate Response Force (IRF) consists of an estimated 4,000 soldiers of the 82nd Deployment Ready Brigade (DRB), whose three battalions can be fielded within 96 hours if needed.
Hundreds of members of the Iraqi Shia militia Kataib Hezbollah stormed the US Embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday, chanting “Death to America” and setting the entrance checkpoint on fire. They were protesting against US airstrikes that killed 25 of their members over the weekend, in what the Pentagon said was retaliation for last week’s rocket strike at a US base in Kirkuk that killed one contractor.
The militia withdrew after a task force of some 100 US Marines, accompanied by attack helicopters, showed up to reinforce the embassy. US President Donald Trump has blamed Iran for the attack and openly threatened Tehran with a
“big price” to pay.
Also on rt.com This is not a warning, it's a threat: Trump declares US embassy in Iraq safe, says Iran will pay ‘big price’ for attack
There are currently 60,000 US troops in the Middle East, of which some 5,000 are in Iraq. Almost 14,000 of those have been added since May 2019, with the Pentagon citing a rising
“threat” from Iran.
In May 2018, the Trump administration unilaterally repudiated the nuclear deal negotiated with Tehran in 2015, and imposed sanctions intended to destroy the Iranian economy. Despite Trump’s campaign rhetoric about ending US involvement in endless foreign wars, his advisers have repeatedly called for what amounts to regime change in Tehran.
https://www.rt.com/news/477244-lawmakers-trump-iraq-embassy/
'Reckless escalation' or 'No more Benghazis'? Dems jeer & GOP cheers as Trump points finger at Tehran after Baghdad embassy attack
1 Jan, 2020 04:22 / Updated 22 minutes ago
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Protesters and militia fighters set fire to a room at the US Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq during a protest of US air strikes on paramilitary forces, December 31, 2019. © Reuters / Wissm al-Okili
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A major partisan divide has formed around President Trump’s handling of the situation in Iraq, with several Democrats blasting recent US airstrikes and troop deployments, and some in the GOP lining up to voice support.
Massachusetts senator and Democratic 2020 hopeful Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday took aim at the president for a US bombing raid ordered on an Iraqi militia over the weekend. American officials accused the group – Kataib Hezbollah – of carrying out a rocket attack on a US base with Iranian backing, which killed one American contractor, though they have yet to offer any evidence for the claims of responsibility.
Also on rt.com US sending 750 troops to Middle East after Baghdad embassy siege – Pentagon
“Trump’s reckless decisions to walk away from the Iran deal and now to launch airstrikes in Iraq without Iraqi government consent have brought us closer to war and endangered US troops and diplomats,” Warren said in a
statement online.
We should end the forever wars, not start new ones.
The US air raid left 25 Iraqi fighters dead and prompted a heated demonstration at the US Embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday afternoon, in which militiamen and ordinary citizens breached the front gate of the embassy complex, smashing windows and scrawling anti-American slogans on its walls.
Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) – who sponsored a bipartisan bill with Kentucky Republican Rand Paul to prevent an
“unauthorized war” with the Islamic Republic earlier this year – also weighed in to slam Trump’s response to the unrest, which included the deployment of a Marine task force and attack helicopters to defend the embassy.
“At a volatile time, the Trump administration’s reckless escalation and miscalculation are endangering US citizens & pushing us closer to unauthorized war in the Middle East,” Udall wrote in a tweet, adding that
“Congress needs to step in and stop it.”
Democratic presidential candidate and Southbend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg joined his fellow lawmakers on Twitter to attack the president for
“mood swings” and making
“policy by tweet,” arguing his actions in Iraq only served to put US
“national interests in harm’s way.” Far from the most dovish Democrat vying for the 2020 nomination, however, Buttigieg accepted that the policies were a response to
“Iranian aggression,” despite disagreeing with them.
Across the aisle, some Republicans were far more supportive, fully endorsing the commander-in-chief’s recent moves. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) credited Trump with
“very solid work” and hailed the Marine deployment as a
“decisive action” needed
“in a time of crisis,” insisting there was
“zero question” about who was behind the rocket attack on the US base.
One of Trump’s biggest boosters as of late, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), also lavished praise on the president after a meeting to discuss the tense situation in Iraq, accusing Iran of threatening
“American interests” and warning that they do so at their own risk. Comparing the embassy siege to a lethal attack on a US diplomatic facility in Libya in 2012, Graham urged for there to be
“no more Benghazis.”
In the latest US response, the Pentagon announced a deployment of some 750 paratroopers to neighboring Kuwait on Tuesday evening, which Defense Secretary Mark Esper said could be mobilized in days to
“protect our people and interests.” Though few lawmakers have yet weighed in on the new deployment, the battle lines in Washington appear to already be drawn.
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Ignore UN n UNSC advice n proceed with the illegal invasion of Iraq killing thousands of poor innocent woman n children! Todate no WMD were found n Bush n cronies go scot free! With the neverending intervention n invasion fm US into ME countries thus creating havoc, civil wars, migrants.....n retard xtians asking why muslims migrated to western countries. For every cause teres an effect. Million of orphans cos their parents were massacred by US n allies. N moron asking why some Muslims taking revenge on the West! As i am typing now....US n allies still killing innocents at Syria...Iraq...Afghanistan...etc
