Nahal Toosi, Politico: Biden’s Iraq hopes crash with reality
The White House is on the defensive after political divisions explode following Biden's trip to the region.
Vice President Joe Biden landed in Baghdad last week with his aides optimistically declaring that Iraq's political tumult had "trended in a more stabilizing direction.”
But the vice president’s plane had barely left Iraqi airspace when the country's political divisions exploded, with hundreds of protesters storming into Baghdad’s Green Zone, occupying the fortified area for much of the weekend to demand an end to government corruption.
The developments threaten to distract from the fight against the Islamic State, which has grabbed vast swaths of Iraqi territory. At the same time, the situation underscores the limited influence U.S. officials — even one as deeply versed in Iraq as Biden — have over the politics of the country America invaded 13 years ago.
Obama administration officials on Monday defended the optimistic overtures from Biden and his aides. They say the onus for resolving the political standoff between Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and his opponents should rest on the shoulders of Iraqis because any overt U.S. role could lead to a backlash.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey sums it up right ....
.... The U.S. “has few cards to play because it’s desperate to do something against [the Islamic State], but it’s even more desperate not to get America more involved.” “This limits its leverage and its ability to play politics.”
We have been seeing the impact of this U.S. policy for the past year in the Middle East .... and it definitely hit home when hours after Vice President Biden left Iraq (when his visit was officially announced) .... that people like Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr took advantage of the situation by storming Baghdad's "Green Zone".
But even with this ongoing mess and clear failure of U.S. policy .... the White House is not going to change its policy, their goal to keep the status quo .... and to then dump this mess on the next President.
In the meantime the U.S. continues to give support to Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi even though he clearly has little if any influence on the mob .... U.S. backs Iraqi leader amid political chaos (USA Today).
4 comments:
I love these people, I really really do.
Maybe the new strategy is the old Biden plan.
Maybe the new strategy is the old Biden plan.
"While many other victims of Saddam welcomed and collaborated with their “liberators,” Sadr would have none of it. In a 2013 interview with the great war correspondent Patrick Cockburn, Sadr lamented that:
“…Iraqis make the mistake of trying to solve one problem by creating a worse one, such as getting the Americans to topple Saddam Hussein but then having the problem of the US occupation. He compared Iraqis to ‘somebody who found a mouse in his house, then he kept a cat, then he wanted to get the cat out of the house so he kept a dog, then to get the dog out of his house he bought an elephant, so he bought a mouse again’.”"
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/05/56348.html#more-56348
"As Cockburn reported, Sadr’s anti-sectarianism and anti-colonialism go hand in hand:
“The future of Iraq as a united and independent country is endangered by sectarian Shia-Sunni hostility says Muqtada al-Sadr… He warns of the danger that ‘the Iraqi people will disintegrate, its government will disintegrate, and it will be easy for external powers to control the country’.”
Indeed, for some in the war party, that may be the method to the madness of U.S. foreign policy. “Divide and Conquer” has been the byword for colonial powers since time immemorial. In the special case of Iraq, the specific formula is: “Stoke Sectarian Strife and Subjugate.”
And perhaps that is why so many in the U.S. foreign policy establishment revile Sadr so much. The last thing they want is for Iraqis (or Syrians, or Libyans, etc) to stop fighting among themselves long enough to join together and assert their independence from their foreign oppressors."
Post a Comment