Following the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Milley's advance confidential visit to the US illegal military base in Syria on the 4th of this month, US Secretary of Defense Austin made another undisclosed visit to Iraq on the 7th.
He is also the highest-ranking U.S. administration official to visit Iraq since the Biden administration took office.
△ Screenshot of CNN report
As an episode in Austin's trip to Jordan, Egypt and Israel and other three countries in the Middle East, which began on the 5th of this month, the timing and motivation of this surprise visit to Iraq are intriguing, because in about ten days, it will be the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq.
What is Austin doing in Iraq at this time?
It is said that in addition to seeking to contain Iranian influence in the region, the main purpose is to negotiate on the elimination of the remnants of the extremist group "Islamic State", reaffirm "the commitment of the United States to support Iraq's sovereign independence and achieve security and stability", and indicate the attitude of US troops "ready to remain in Iraq".
Many media have noticed that Austin himself is not only the last commander of US forces in Iraq, but also personally participated in the war that overthrew Saddam Hussein's regime and plunged Iraq into a vortex of turmoil.
△Screenshot of Spain's EFE report
A tube of "washing powder", a war of aggression, a mess
In the history of US military intervention in Middle East countries, Iraq, once the largest power in the Middle East, has a thick account of blood and tears.
Interested in Iraq's oil interests and strategic position, the United States twice destroyed the country by force by planting stolen means.
Compared with the "nursery box incident" concocted for the first Gulf War, the second "washing powder" planting is more "classic".
Twenty years ago, on February 5, 2003, then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell referred to a test tube containing white powder in the United Nations Security Council as "evidence of Iraq's development of chemical weapons," paving the way for the use of force against Iraq.
△The so-called "evidence" that Powell showed in the UN Security Council was later ridiculed by the outside world as "washing powder"
Six weeks later, the US-British coalition launched the Iraq War without a United Nations mandate on the grounds of so-called "weapons of mass destruction" and eventually overthrew Saddam's regime.
This war based on lies has left hundreds of thousands of people dead and millions homeless in Iraq.
△ Brown University Watson Institute for International Studies official website: A total of 185,000-208,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in the war
At the same time, the US military also left behind a huge humanitarian disaster.
In the Gulf War and the Iraq War, the U.S. military used depleted uranium munitions, which are banned under international law, and the number of people suffering from birth defects, cancer and other diseases in much of Iraq soared.
△ British "Guardian": The Dutch peace organization PAX report shows that in the Iraq war, the US-led coalition used about 10,000 depleted uranium bombs around civilian areas, seriously endangering the local ecological environment and people's health.
In addition, the US military has seriously violated international humanitarian principles and caused many incidents of torture of prisoners.
The notorious Abghraib prison has left a lot of evidence of the crimes of the US military.
CNN: Abghraib Prison was a detention center for captured Iraqis by the US military between 2003 and 2006, and at its peak held about 3,800 people. Prison abuse scandals have been exposed since 2003.
To this day, the United States has failed to produce conclusive evidence of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and no one has assumed any responsibility for the "unjustly killing" of Iraq.
The US military presence that does not change the soup
This self-directed war in Iraq not only seriously trampled on international law and order, but also brought long-term chaos and deep disasters to post-war Iraq.
With the overthrow of Saddam's regime, Iraq fell into a governance vacuum, the security situation deteriorated sharply, and social order was instantly chaotic.
Due to the "democratic transformation" imposed on Iraq by the United States after the invasion, Iraq's original political ecology has been seriously damaged, resulting in many political factions in Iraq, contradictions that are difficult to reconcile, and long-term political instability.
△ British "Open Democracy" political website (Open Democracy) website: "American-style democracy" has brought long-term suffering to the Iraqi people
In particular, after the National Assembly elections in October 2021, the domestic political struggle in Iraq quickly intensified, resulting in a delay in the birth of a new president and a long-term suspension of the formation of a cabinet.
At the end of August last year, the ongoing political stalemate and protests eventually developed into bloody clashes that resulted in heavy casualties.
△Qatar's Al Jazeera: Political violence at the end of August last year killed at least 30 people
Kamal Jabara, a columnist and political analyst for Egypt's Pyramid newspaper, once pointed out that the root cause of Iraq's chaos is that the old political and social ecology has been broken and reorganized, and "the United States imposed Western-style democracy in Iraq is a great mistake and the real source of the instability in Iraq."
In 2011, it was Austin, as commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, who announced that the United States had achieved its military goals in Iraq. U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq.
However, with the "victory and return to the DPRK" of the US military, this country that had rarely seen terrorist activities before quickly became a hotbed for terrorist organizations to wreak havoc.
Reuters: The 2003 invasion plunged Iraq into chaos, eventually laying the groundwork for the rise of the extremist group Islamic State after the US withdrawal in 2011.
In 2014, in order to "be invited" to help the Iraqi government fight the extremist group "Islamic State", the US troops that had been withdrawn returned.
But the US military in Iraq, which claims to be redeployed to help Iraq "fight terrorism", has not actually fought terrorism, but has been "not doing business".
On January 3, 2020, Iraqi militia leader Mohandis and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps senior general Suleimani were both killed near Baghdad airport during a drone strike authorized by then-U.S. President Donald Trump. Anti-American sentiment among the Iraqi population has grown as a result.
After the attack, the Iraqi parliament passed a bill requiring the government to end the presence of all foreign forces led by the United States in Iraq.
In July 2021, the United States and Iran signed an agreement agreeing to formally end the combat mission of the US military in Iraq at the end of that year and shift to the role of "advisor". However, the Iraqi resistance group believes that the US military presence in Iraq is just a new name, in fact, it is a change of soup without a change of medicine.
△ Iran's Tasnim News Agency: The Iraqi resistance group warned that if the US military continues to remain in Iraq, they will fight openly with the US military.
The analysis generally believes that the calculation of the US military stationed in Iraq to "withdraw but not leave" is that it can not only evade responsibility on the grounds of "not participating in combat missions" when there is an incident, but also extend its military tentacles at any time when needed. This long-term military presence of the United States means that the political and security situation in Iraq will continue to complicate.
As the Israeli Jerusalem Post article put it, on the surface, the United States continues to station troops "at the invitation of Iraq", but in essence, Iraq is also regarded by the United States as a key base in the Middle East, just like the illegal US military presence in Syria.
Unlike under Trump, the United States no longer talks about withdrawal. But this does not mean that Iraq will not ask the United States to withdraw its troops in any case, nor does it mean that the US government has a clear vision for the future of Iraq and Syria.
△ Screenshot of the Jerusalem Post report
Source丨Global Information Broadcast "Global Deep Observation"
Planning丨Wang Jian
Reporter 丨 Huang Tao
Editor丨 Yang Nan
Signed for trial 丨 Wang Jian
Executive producer丨Guan Juanjuan
Source: CNN