The resolution in January passed by Iraq’s parliament calling for the expulsion of US forces from the country, triggered by the murder by the US of the Iranian national war hero General Qasem Soleimani, was widely reported at the time, but little or no coverage was available for the detail of the proceeding.
If we are to believe the testimony of a Russian website however, one which has previously proved to be a reliable source concerning the continuing liberation struggle of the Donbass against US-backed aggression by the fascist junta in Kiev, then it becomes clear why the imperialist media have been so eager to keep the details under wraps.
According to the report (posted on the Russian Colonel Cassad website and translated from Arabic by Ahmed al-Khazraji), whilst most sunni deputies boycotted the session, the speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Mohamed Halbousi, attended at the specific behest of the US, which was in a panic that prime minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi was planning to blow the cover on classified information.
Acting on US orders, Halbousi did his best to shut the prime minister up, disconnecting his microphone at the beginning of his speech and stopping the live TV broadcast of the session. Unfazed, Abdul-Mahdi soldiered on, speaking angrily about how the Americans had destroyed his country and now refused to complete infrastructure and energy projects unless they were promised 50 percent of oil revenues, an insolent demand which Abdul-Mahdi had refused.
He told the assembled deputies: “This is why I visited China and signed an important construction agreement with it. After my return, Trump called me and demanded to terminate the agreement, and when I refused, he threatened me with huge demonstrations against me that would put an end to my ship going down (sic).”
Most dramatically of all, he is said to have recounted to stunned deputies how US president Donald Trump had threatened to kill both the PM and his defence minister if they didn’t stop talking about US involvement in the unrest in Iraq, and raised the prospect that US marine snipers would be tasked to kill demonstrators and security forces alike.
This allegation might strain credulity were it not for the fact that exactly this ‘colour revolution’ tactic was adopted to help along the fascist overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected government in 2014, when the then president decided to put on hold the association agreement with the EU.
It is also a tactic that has been thoroughly exposed in the work of ‘economic hitman‘ John Perkins.
As was concluded in a recent article in Lalkar, Iraq is at a crossroads, and more is at stake than just another change of prime minister.
Iraqis will do well to stiffen their resistance to imperialist meddling and hold fast to their real friends like Syria, Iran and China.
