War and Conflict

Just like that, it was over. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called it ‘a kerfuffle’. A letter was sent to their Iraqi peers that the U.S was repositioning troops out of Iraq in accordance with legislation from Iraq ending the U.S military presence in the war-torn country, and suddenly then it was retracted by higher-ups. Running interference, Mark Esper backed Milley and said it was ‘an honest mistake’. It all went down within a day of the irrational assassination of Iran’s Soleimani.

Joe Biden’s statement that “President Trump just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox” by assassinating Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani was not inaccurate. But it skirts an all-important question: who created the tinderbox in the first place?
The answer, of course, is the United States.

On Sunday morning 5 January 2020, the author of the Moon of Alabama blog headlined “Iraqi Parliament Expels Foreign Militaries From Iraq” and he reported that not only the parliament but also the nation’s Prime Minister (Abdel Mahdi) are demanding departure from Iraq of all foreign military forces, and that Iraq will now — as UAE’s The National puts it — “lodge an official complaint against the U.S.

As the Middle East lurches to deeper chaos, thanks to Washington’s drone-strike assassination in Iraq of Iranian and Iraqi citizens, and the world braces for reprisals, the light has shifted from the countless millions of other people deserving attention and compassion. Human rights continue to be abused in many regions in spite of efforts by the UN and private organisations to persuade various governments that their conduct is shameful.
Which brings us to the government of Britain.

President Trump was understood to not want a Mid-East war that might blight his rosy re-election prospects (so long as the US stock market stays inflated, and the economy doesn’t tank). Pat Buchanan, the three-times US Presidential candidate, warned Trump that if there is a potential landmine on Trump’s road to reelection, it may be found in the Middle and Near East: “Not infrequently, foreign policy has proven decisive in presidential years”. Plus Iran was not seeking any major confrontation; Hizbullah wasn’t; Iraq wasn’t; and the Israeli Security Establishment wasn’t.

The assassination of Iran’s top general is not only going to wreak havoc on America’s allies in the region. It is also going to divide the Arab world just at the very time when diplomacy was working. Was that the real aim of the hit?
Much will be written in the coming days and weeks on how a war might take shape in the aftermath of President Trump’s assassination of Qassem Soleimani, arguably Iran’s most cherished military figure who, for over twenty years, has run its regional conflicts and has shaped and maintained its strategic alliances in the entire Arab world.

Even before he was buried, Iranian General Qasem Soleimani had to endure a second assassination at the hands of the Americans; besmirching his character and military history.

When things are as crazy as they are right now, it’s hard to see just how much progress has been made. 2019 had in it a number of watershed moments in geopolitics which signal just how close to radical change in the game board we are.

China’s successful launch of its Long March 5 Rocket on December 26 was a powerful reminder of humanity’s true mission and higher nature as a species of reason and discovery which came at just the right moment as China/US tensions have fallen to new lows in recent months.

The creatures that lurk through the corridors of power in Washington DC have refined corruption to the point where almost anything goes and almost no one is ever held accountable. Traditionally, Congressmen reward their various constituencies by inserting riders into larger pieces of legislation that grant money, exemptions or favors to certain groups or individuals.