Trump threatens Iraq with 'very big sanctions' unless it pays back $billions for airbase if US troops are forced to withdraw

RT
Mon, 06 Jan 2020 16:28 UTC

© REUTERS/Tom Brenner/File Photo

Iraq should brace for sanctions that will make the ones placed on Iran look weak in comparison if it kicks out the US troops without first covering the costs for an airbase, US President Donald Trump said.

"We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that's there. It cost billions of dollars to build, long before my time. We're not leaving unless they pay us back for it," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday.

Comment: If the U.S. can seize Russian property and kick diplomats out on a whim, the Iraqis can expropriate the airbase and kick the Americans out of the country. It's not your country, Trump.

The punitive measures that the US is ready to slap on its supposed ally in the fight against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) will be even harsher than the crippling sanctions already in effect against Tehran, the president said.

"If they do ask us to leave, if we don't do it in a very friendly basis, we will charge them sanctions like they've never seen before ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame."

Trump's warning to Iraq comes after Iraqi MPs passed a non-binding resolution, championed by the country's caretaker prime minister, asking the Iraqi government to expel foreign troops by cancelling a request for military assistance from the US-led coalition.

The resolution, adopted earlier on Sunday, envisions that some foreign troops might stay in Iraq for training purposes, but the number of foreign instructors deemed necessary should be reported back by the Iraqi authorities.

'We are not allowed to touch Iran's cultural sites? It doesn't work that way'

Trump also doubled down on his threat to wipe out Iranian cultural sites in retaliation for potential future attacks from Tehran, which has vowed to avenge the assassination of its top general, Qassem Soleimani, by the US.

Comment: Remember, Pompeo denied that Trump threatened to attack cultural sites. Maybe he should have clarified with his boss first.

Accusing Iran of "torturing" and "maiming" American soldiers in suicide attacks and by planting roadside bombs, Trump hinted that attacks on US troops justify potential war crimes - the destruction of a nation's cultural heritage.

"They're allowed to kill our people. They're allowed to torture and maim our people. They're allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we're not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn't work that way."

Comment: Shia factions were responsible for a small fraction of the attacks on invading American forces. The vast majority were Sunni. And let's remember, it was the U.S. which invaded the country, torturing and maiming Iraqis.

Trump's statement on Saturday that the US might fire upon 52 sites that are important to Iran's people and culture has courted controversy in the US, with many of the Trump administration's critics noting that Washington would mimic the methods of its declared adversary, Islamic State - which is notorious for damaging and destroying globally-significant cultural sites in Syria and Iraq.

Comment: Boris Johnson's government had this to say:

However, on Monday, Johnson's official spokesman insisted that "there are international conventions in place that prevent the destruction of cultural heritage." He stopped short of saying the killing of Soleimani was a 'war crime', claiming instead "states have a right to take actions such as this in self-defense."

Comment: As RT observes, kicking the Americans out is easier said than done. Pompeo continues on his streak of delusion by insisting the Iraqis actually want the Americans to stay. This man is just an idiot, plain and simple. He's living in a fantasy world of his own childish exceptionalism. Just read his response: "We are confident that the Iraqi people want the United States to continue to be there to fight the counterterror campaign," Pompeo told Fox News Sunday. The UK doesn't want to leave, either. Their "vital work" there is just too important.

The Trump Administration reportedly even tried blocking the Iraqi Parliament from voting on the issue:

The Trump administration attempted to thwart the efforts of the Iraqi parliament to expel foreign military forces from the country in the wake of the killing of a top Iranian military commander and an Iraqi militia leader by US forces inside Iraqi territories, Axios reported on Sunday, citing two unnamed US officials and an Iraqi official.

The three officials told Axios that the Trump administration tried to convince the Iraqi government to block its parliament from passing the resolution, which will force the US military out of Iraq. One US official reportedly said that the exit of US troops from the country would "be catastrophic for Iraq".

"It's our concern that Iraq would take a short-term decision that would have catastrophic long-term implications for the country and its security. But it's also what would happen to them financially if they allowed Iran to take advantage of their economy to such an extent that they would fall under the sanctions that are on Iran," the official reportedly said. "We don't want to see that. We're trying very hard to work to have that not happen."

Axios also cited an unnamed senior Iraqi official who claimed that many Kurdish and Sunni members of the Iraqi parliament, who are supporting the US presence in Iraq, did not attend the parliament vote on expelling all foreign military forces, including US-led international coalition, from Iraqi territories.

"This is a temporary victory for the parties which are pro-Iranian, but it's also a clear message from the Sunnis and from the Kurds [who didn't vote] and from some Iraqi Shia, for the Americans to tell them we want you to stay in Iraq," the Iraqi official said, according to the website.

One way or another, the Americans will get out of Iraq eventually. The Axis of Resistance is vowing to force them out. Here's Nasrallah's speech. And here's Soleimani's successor Qaani: "We promise to continue martyr Soleimani's path with the same force... and the only compensation for us would be to remove America from the region." And Sheikh Qais al-Khazali, leader of the Asaib Ahl al-Haqq movement, a key faction of Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Unit:

• We will take revenge for Hajj Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and his companions and we will not accept anything less than the expulsion of US forces from Iraq
• the Iraqi parliament decision today is one of the most important decisions it has taken throughout its history
• We tell the Americans that Trump is an idiot who will cause nothing but further death and casualties for American soldiers
• The US forces must leave (Iraq) immediately, and if they begin to stall, we will consider them as occupation forces and act towards them based on this
• The Israeli project will never rest until it engulfs Iraq in flames and civil infighting

The Iraqi government is reportedly already at work on implementing Parliament's decision:

The Iraqi government has begun working on steps to implement the parliament's decision on the expulsion of foreign forces from the country, the press service of Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi said in a statement, as regional tensions are rising in the wake of the assassination of Iranian general by the United States in Baghdad.

"Iraqi specialists from various agencies are drafting a document on further legal and procedural actions to implement the parliament's decision to remove foreign troops [from Iraq]," the prime minister said during his conversation with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves le Drian, as quoted in the statement on Sunday.

They've already limited the movement of American forces in the country:

Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a security spokesman for Iraq's prime minister ... said that the US-led international coalition will be allowed to consult, arm and train Iraqi military personnel and security forces, but the troops will be removed. Khalaf added that the Iraqi government had limited the movements of foreign forces on the ground and in the air.

The process kick-started a day after Iraqi lawmakers adopted a motion requiring the government to end the presence of foreign troops from the country. There has been no word from the government on whether it ratified the resolution.
...
Abdul-Karim Khalaf called that strike, which hadn't been agreed with Iraq in advance, a "stupidity [that] is impossible to keep silent about." The Iraqi foreign ministry on Sunday summoned the US ambassador to condemn the strike as a "blatant violation of Iraqi sovereignty."

Before the parliamentary vote, PM Mahdi apparently revealed some interesting pieces of information:

• He said that the United States allowed Israel to inflict several illegal air strikes on the munitions depots of the Iraqi armed forces last year. Israel and the US have denied this information.
• He informed the deputies that US aviation was illegally taken into the air, and flew over the American embassy on December 31 without the permission of the Iraqi government.
• He stated that he was trying to reconcile the USA and Iran after the US air strike on a military base of pro-Iranian forces in the west of the country on December 30, when 25 people died. According to him, the States refused to even give an informal apology to the Iranians, and the negotiations fell apart.
• He said that it was the leadership of the "Popular Mobilization Force" together with the killed on the eve of Abu Magdi Al-Mugandes at the cost of the threat of his resignation and the entire Cabinet of Ministers forced the protesters under the US embassy to go home and end his siege. I wrote about this earlier, and now it has officially sounded from the lips of the Iraqi prime minister.
• He also said that Kassem Suleimani arrived in Baghdad and brought with him a letter from the Iranian leadership to representatives of Saudi Arabia, with whom he was negotiating a regional reconciliation.

That is, in other words, Suleymani carried out some important diplomatic mission between Tehran, Riyadh, Damascus and Baghdad when the States killed him. This makes the situation even more difficult. Now everything looks like the United States wanted to ruin the hell out of possible peace talks between regional players.

See also:

• Iraqi lawmakers approve bill to expel US forces from country - UPDATE