WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – The U.S. will not “walk away” from the Middle East, a top general said Thursday, emphasizing the region’s critical role in the country’s national security priorities.
During an interview with Jordan’s Al-Mamlaka TV, Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the region is “very important and very significant to the United States for a lot of reasons.”
“Obviously, the region is a primary source of oil and energy resources for other parts of the world,” he said.
“I can’t imagine that the United States would ever walk away from the Middle East. I think we’ll remain committed for many, many years and decades to come,” he said.
An Iraqi Resistance group has warned the United States that it would “crush” Washington’s destructive projects in the region.
Kata’ib Hezbollah, which belongs to Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) umbrella counterterrorism forces, who are better known as Hashd al-Sha’abi, issued the warning in a statement.
The U.S. withdrew its troops from Iraq between 2007 and 2011 but redeployed them in 2014 along with other partners to allegedly counter the threat of the Daesh terrorist group.
Iraq managed to end the territorial rule of the terror outfit in the country thanks to the sacrifices of the national army as well as the PMU.
The statement by Kata’ib Hezbollah said American military convoys’ recent movements across some Iraqi cities served as a “clear testament to the enemy’s intransigence and its intention to retain its invasive combat forces in the [Arab] country.”
The remaining American forces, though, are “not stronger” in number and the size of their equipment than those that the U.S. used to keep in the country before 2011, the group said. The Resistance has also developed and increased its capabilities compared to that time, it added.
“They (the Americans) should know this that their muscle-flexing is futile, and if the resistance chooses to fight, it will crush their sinister projects in the region so that Iraq will be their last stronghold in the multi-polar world.”
The statement came a day after Asaib Ahl al-Haq, another Iraqi Resistance group, said the eventual withdrawal of the U.S. forces from Iraq was inevitable since the country was capable of defending itself.
The movement also said the main goal of the American military presence in Iraq was to ensure the security of the Zionist regime.