By Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson Emeritus, International League of Peoples’ Struggle
The acting Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi revealed in his recent address to the Iraqi Parliament that US President Trump had asked him to “play the mediator’s role” between the U.S. and Iran and that consequently General Qassem Soleimani flew to Baghdad with a message from the Iranian government regarding the lowering of tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
General Soleimani was on a peace mission when Trump ordered his military minions to track the flight and arrival of the celebrated Iranian general at the Baghdad airport in order to target him with an air strike by drone and to murder him together with Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units leader Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis and their Iranian and Iraqi companions.
The revelation of Iraqi Prime Minister of Abdul-Mahdi completely belies the claim of Trump and the Pentagon that they took “decisive defensive action” to preempt an attack directed by Soleimani. In fact, Trump knew that Soleimani was traveling to Baghdad in a diplomatic capacity as an emissary of Iran to discuss with the Iraqi Prime Minister the de-escalation of violence involving the US and Saudi Arabia.
Although previously known as a close ally of the US, Abdul-Mahdi is totally offended by the multiple murder of his official guest Soleimani, PMU leader Al-Mohandes and the accompanying Iraqi and Iranian citizens in brazen violation of Iraqi national sovereignty and territorial integrity and has recommended to the Iraqi Parliament to approve the resolution to kick out the US military forces from Iraq.
As already resolved by the Iraqi Parliament, the US must withdraw its military forces from Iraq. But in reaction, Trump is aggravating his crime of multiple murder and flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty by refusing to withdraw US military forces from Iraq, demanding payment for US military bases and threatening to impose sanctions far worse than those on Iran.
In the first place, the US has been in Iraq because of its war of aggression and its illegal occupation on the false pretext of taking out nuclear, chemical and other weapons of mass destruction. The US is under obligation to make war damage payments to Iraq for the large-scale destruction of Iraqi lives, infrastructure and properties.
The US must respect Iraqi sovereignty and territorial integrity. It has no choice but to yield its military bases to Iraq as sovereign owner of the land and pay the rent for the use of said bases for many years. It is the US that has the moral and financial obligations to Iraq and not the other way around. Otherwise, there is just cause for the Iraqi people to rise up against US imperialism and its terrorism.
Far beyond the gangster mentality of Trump, there are far reaching consequences of his criminal acts. He has driven the Iraqi and Iranian governments and peoples to stand together against US imperialism. They can use their own resources, means and alliances to fight US imperialism and its closest allies, Israeli Zionism and the Saudi monarchy. And they can avail of the support of Russia and China in countering the high-tech weaponry of their enemies.
Thanks to the terrorist roguery of Trump and US imperialism, they are becoming further isolated and there is high potential for the Middle East to become a new Vietnam on a much wider scale for US imperialism and its regional puppets and with far worse consequences for them. The ceaseless wars that the US has unleashed in the region under the neoconservative policy are graduating to a grand war between increasingly independent states and US imperialism on accelerated decline.
Under these conditions, the people and their revolutionary forces (especially national liberation movements with a socialist perspective) can gain strength for themselves from the opportunities arising from the inter-imperialist contradictions and contradictions between imperialist powers and recalcitrant or discreditable client-states. The proletariat and people of the world are steadily moving and advancing in the direction of widespread anti-imperialism and the resurgence of the world proletarian revolution.###
