Iraq

People from all over Iraq have descended upon its capital Baghdad, heeding the call from influential Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr for a “million man march” calling for an end to the nearly 17 year-long U.S. occupation of the country. Images from the event show seas of peaceful crowds walking together through the city center. Sayed Sadiq al-Hashemi, the director of the Iraqi Center for Studies, estimated that more than 2.5 million took part in the demonstrations.

Press TV – January 24, 2020 Iraqis have rallied in Baghdad in massive numbers to call for an end to US military presence in the country following high-profile assassinations and airstrikes targeting anti-terror forces. Sayed Sadiq al-Hashemi, the director of the Iraqi Center for Studies, said more than 2.5 million took part in the demonstrations […]

“Iraq caught between a rock and a hard place”, “Iraq between the hammer and the anvil” and similar headlines in Iraqi news reflect public reactions towards recent events within the nation. We are referring here to the assassination of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al‑Muhandis, the deputy head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi), by Americans at Baghdad airport on 3 January of this year.

While the current Liberal government claims to be progressive and in favour of a rules-based international order, promotion of democracy and world peace, its actions regarding Iran demonstrate that the primary drivers of Canadian foreign policy remain US geo-political interests and the interests of the rich and powerful.
(This previous article argues this has long been the case.)

IMAGE: Trump’s Special Envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, back-to-back with hawkish Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Just when you thought Washington could not sink any lower in the international diplomacy game, the Trump White House compounds its previous misdeed by issuing a public death threat against the successor of assassinated Quds Force General Qasem Soleimani.

Patrick LAWRENCE
Of all the preposterous assertions made since the drone assassination of Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on Jan. 3, the prize for bottomless ignorance must go to the bottomlessly ignorant Mike Pompeo.

Sanctions can be more deadly than bullets By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • January 21, 2020 Supporters of Donald Trump often make the point that he has not started any new wars. One might observe that it has not been for lack of trying, as his cruise missile attacks on Syria based on fabricated […]

Mehr News Agency – January 19, 2020 Iraq’s Kurdistan Democratic Party announced that the expulsion of US troops from Iraq’s Kurdistan region is subject to the decision by the central government. The withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq’s Kurdistan region is a decision that Baghdad will make, said a member of Iraq’s Kurdistan Democratic Party […]

Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani (left) and Iraqi PMU commander, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (Image: Al Manar/Wikicommons)
Tony Cartalucci
21st Century Wire

Our weekly documentary film, curated by our team at 21WIRE.
This ground-breaking documentary by award-winning journalist and filmmaker John Pilger, investigates the effects of US-led international sanctions on the people of Iraq, depleted uranium contamination, and discovers that after ten years of extraordinary isolation imposed by the United Nations – and enforced by the US and Britain, have killed more people than the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan. Watch: