It’s a little-known story that’s not breaking through U.S. mainstream media, but something that Americans need to know:
Iraq’s leaders are vowing to stand with Iran if Iran is attacked by the United States.
Period. Now just grok that for a moment. Iraq will stand with Iran if Trump moves on Iran militarily.
Iraq’s Foreign Minister Mohamed Ali al-Hakim made the pledge following talks with his Iranian counterpart.
“We stand by our neighbor Iran, and economic sanctions are unnecessary and cause great suffering to the Iranian people.”
This is all in the midst of the US government ramping up its rhetoric against what it calls the Iranian threat.
The latest ramp-up was just today with US National Security Adviser John Bolton saying – without offering any evidence – that recent attacks on oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates this month were the work of “naval mines almost certainly from Iran”.
Of course, Bolton – Trump’s front man – has previously called for “the overthrow of the mullahs’ regime in Tehran”. He made the comments during a briefing to journalists in the Emirati capital of Abu Dhabi.
Iran responded on Wednesday, May 29, by calling the accusation “ridiculous”. Denying involvement in the attacks, Iran has accused the United States of fabricating a crisis in the Gulf, after Washington deployed an aircraft carrier strike group, more B-52 bombers, and an additional 1,500 American troops to the region.
The foreign ministry of Iran rejected Bolton’s allegations. Spokesman Abbas Mousavi said it was a “ridiculous accusation” but “not a strange thing” since it came from someone with a long record of anti-Iran sentiment. AlJazeera
Iraq could play a mediator in the rising tensions. Or it could continue to be a battleground. As a Middle-East observer sees it:
Iraq remains caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place, forced to bend to the will of two antithetical powers. If the threat of confrontation crystallises, it will be in Iraq, should Iran test the strategic weight of its militias inside Iraq.
Trump has just said he doesn’t want “Regime change” in Iran, and the Iranians are saying ‘actions speak louder than words.’
How can the American people fathom another war – and this time the place we spent so much blood and treasure – Iraq – will stand against us if our leaders continue this march to war with Iran.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Well, doesn’t this bring George Bush’s spectacular stupidity full circle. Now the country we supposedly liberated from from a cruel despot is taking sides against us. If we are providing Iraq with any money at all, I’d turn it off immediately and tell them to go fish.
If only, Geoff. We’re now selling billions of dollars of weaponry to the Saudis under yet another ‘national emergency” and deploying more troops. Last time I checked all of this should require Congressional approval- seems to me there’s too thin a line between “declaring a war” and “war prep”. Who even knows if we’re “giving $ to Iraq”? Giving money? Troops? Weapons? It seems now there are no distinctions. We don’t even know how many troops we have deployed world-wide in ongoing “efforts”. $ that is allocated to general DOD budget just gets shifted at will to the wall, to weapons, to whatever seems to get under Trump’s saddle. Its a travesty, and I can’t believe the American people have to put up with this mismanagement and re-appropriation of national interests and federal dollars. :-(
In 1991, as Trump was burning through his portion of his father’s fortune, teetering on personal bankruptcy and scrambling to raise cash, he sold his 282-foot Trump yacht “Princess” to Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin-Talal for $20 million, a third less than what he reportedly paid for it.
Trump sold the 45th floor in June 2001 for $4.5 million to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
On September 11, 2001, terrorists, 15 of whom were Saudis, killed 2996 Americans and injured over 6000.
And then there’s bailouts of Trump by Russian mobsters.
Trump is a Trojan Horse.
You’re driving me to the bottle again, retired botanist….
Haha, Geoff- got a swig for me, too?! :-)
I’ll get another bottle or two…
:) – Word. I am so incensed with Barr’s comments, now denigrating Mueller that he should have concluded an obstruction indictment after waffling on himself about the fact that DOJ was prohibited from doing so by the OLC mandate)-what a loser, imo, as AG material.
And Trump’s disrespectful comment re the “well meaning” intention per the USS McCain “hiding”, which was so incredibly insulting to all military, and especially those crew who serve on the McCain vessel.
I’m distracted from this thread! But then, that is the “whack a mole” we’re living in right now. Its extraordinary that one hardly knows where or on which topic to park the rage.
Bring on the bottle indeed.
Ah yes, humanitarian intervention in the flavor of democracy taking out the CIA-installed dictator by blowing the country back to the 19th Century and causing the death of over one million people according to independent studies (the Lancet study, others) and not done by the governments doing the slaughtering (ours, England, etc).
What did the US target? Schools, water treatment plants, dams, electrical power stations, hospitals, bridges, on and on the list goes. Too many to list. Then we stole their oil (oh wait, ‘legal’ contracts by corrupt officials put in power by the US military?) so they don’t have anything to sell to make the money to fix what the US blew up.
Ahahahahaha. Isn’t that hilarious?
Bombing civilian infrastructure used to be a war crime punishable by hanging at the neck until dead. Of course back then dismembered women and children weren’t called ‘collateral damage’ by the US corporate media, either. They were called ‘victims.’
But the following corporate clown of a president said to us ‘let us not look back but forward into the hopey-changey future’ and those mass murdering war criminals never were sent to a reputable courtroom to answer for what they LIED the US into committing on innocent human beings.
Anybody go back and listen to George Carlin? Sure is relevant to current events.
Hmmmm. Doubtful that any of these facts will be in a high school history book anytime soon… Nothing real ever is which is why most kids sleep through history class and don’t know squat about their own country. Then they get to ‘vote.’
Ahahahahahaha that’s even more funny! Are you laughing yet?
sealintheSelkirks
Two comments for you, sealintheselkirks.
Learn to recognize sarcasm.
Recognize that you are not the only person in the world who knows history, not everyone needs you to educate them.
Ummmm, Geoff, I don’t think Frank Gormlie was throwing up sarcasm in this article. As a matter of fact, my comment was intended (sarcastically by the way) to add to what he was saying. You didn’t get that from my first paragraph?
Did you not get the additional sarcasm inherent in my ‘hahahaha…hilarious…even more funny’ etc comments?
I will admit that the ‘are we laughing yet?’ comment was not really funny since that was irony. At least it felt like irony.
And as for not being the only person in the world who knows history, that’s pretty obvious with Frank’s writing in this article. Why would you even write that sentence?
As little of history that is taught in the school systems, as quickly as current events are forgotten in a 24 hour tv cycle, and when the recent past is delegated to being ancient news not worthy of repeating for context to the latest bad news current events, and then add in the incredibly pervasive propaganda being delivered not-stop by the corporate MSM… Yeah, reminding people of history that they might have forgotten about or, more likely, never heard of before because they just don’t read much I actually find to be a worthwhile endeavor. I’m sure that there isn’t anyone who reads or comments on the Rag that pretends to know everything.
I am not a mechanic. I can’t draw worth a damn. Won’t even try writing poetry. I hated quadratic equations. Nope, I’m sure I don’t know everything. Thank you for reminding me of that just in case I had forgotten.
Do you have any idea just how many people still think Saddam had nuclear missiles aimed at us and what great friends he and bin Laden? I talk to people in my area who are wearing Glock 22 .40 caliber pistols on their waists wearing MAGA hats that I’m just passing on some history or talking about what the climate and biosphere is doing at the moment. There really are people that are interested in learning from others so I don’t mind being asked questions by such folk.
If ones doesn’t try spreading facts around and reminding people of what was what before it got to how awful it is now, then I think that we are shirking our duty as citizens. 85% of adults in this country get ALL their ‘info-tainment’ from tv. Studies have shown that people actually get dumber the more tv they watch.
What’s it up to now? 7 hours a day for adults?
Example below is a cut from comments by Jeffrey St. Clair:
Ken Dilanian, MSDNC’s “intelligence” reporter: “Federal judges aren’t political.” No wonder American kids can’t name a single supreme court justice…
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retired botanist:
SASA arrived, I’ll toss it back as I head out of here Monday. It’s off to the Snake River below Jackson Hole to surf the Lunch Counter all next week. The river is expected to flow between 10,000 and 14,000 CFS which is perfect, camping in bear territory but the snow has melted off at that elevation (still 105% in the high elevations and 40’F nights), and getting to hang with friends flying in from the Islands and driving up from Salt Lake City that I haven’t seen in years. Might even be more star fields above my head there than up here where it already is pretty dang impressive on dark new moon nights. No city lights can you imagine? It gets REALLY dark in the Snake River Canyon at nigh. If it’s clear the sky is indescribable if you haven’t seen it yourself…just no words can do it justice.
Ta-ta! Do something fun every day.
sealintheSelkirks
I meant my comment, not Frank’s story.