Iraq Unlikely to Slip Into Another U.S. Pit

Date: 05 October 2019 - 21:47

News ID: ۷۱۳۴۳

BAGHDAD (Dispatches) -- Iraqi authorities on Saturday lifted a days-long curfew in Baghdad as normalcy returned to the streets of the country's capital.
Traffic ran as usual in Baghdad, with streets and main squares being otherwise quite, Reuters news agency reported.
Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi had announced the curfew on Thursday. The country's National Security Council had issued a statement on Thursday saying that the measure was required to "protect citizens and public and private properties".
The curfew came after several days of Iraqi protests against mismanagement and corruption, with certain elements turning to acts of violence. A number of protesters and security personnel have been killed as a result of the provocations.
On Friday, Iraqi police said in a statement that "unidentified snipers” killed two security forces and two civilians across the capital Baghdad earlier in the day.
Security forces deployed in their hundreds to keep unruly protests away from central squares in the Iraqi capital on Saturday.
The government has responded with reform promises and fired more than 1,000 officials for mismanagement and other culpabilities.
Iraqi state television meanwhile broadcast live footage of a meeting between the parliament speaker and what it said were protest leaders. The speaker on Friday proposed improving public housing for the poor and job opportunities for young people, as well as holding those who had killed protesters to account.
Officials from Abdul-Mahdi’s office met protest leaders from Baghdad and other provinces to discuss their demands, state television reported. Abdul-Mahdi and President Barham Salih said they would seek to meet the demands.
The protests over unfair distribution of jobs, lack of services and government corruption erupted on Tuesday in Baghdad and quickly spread to other Iraqi cities, mainly in the south.
The unrest, however, has been hijacked by suspicious elements who have derailed the peaceful demonstrations, PM Abdul-Mahdi said on Friday.
Arab media outlets and observes have published reports revealing the U.S. seeks to stir up chaos in a bid to install a pro-American regime.
"Despite the legitimate demands of the Iraqi people in fighting corruption", recent developments in Iraq have been a "manifestation of an American plot to abuse such grievances," the Lebanese daily newspaper Al-Akhbar reported.
The paper said Iraqi security officials have uncovered a plot that seeks to provoke major clashes between Iraqi protesters and security forces.
They are meant to produce a major security vacuum that can set the stage for the emergence of a U.S.-affiliated Iraqi military commander who can take on the leadership role of a "savior government" and ultimately strengthen U.S. control over the country, it said.
The Iraqi government, however, was well aware of the plan and had adopted several policies to counter it, it added without elaboration.
Writing for the Arabic-language Al-Ahd news website, Ali Matar, an analyst in Arab political affairs, said Washington sought to create insecurity in the country so that Iraq would remain "hostage" to the U.S.
Matar said Washington also sought to revive Daesh terror cells and sabotage the protests.
The Arab analyst said that Washington had always sought to undermine Iraq when it was close to attaining certain points of political and economic breakthrough.
Matar said tensions came shortly after the Abdul-Mahdi government reopened the country's Al-Qa'im crossing with Syria and accused the occupying regime of Israel of orchestrating a string of recent drone strikes on Iraqi popular mobilization forces.
Abdul-Mahdi had also entered talks with Beijing and Moscow in a bid to acquire air defenses against the attacks, he said, adding the U.S. seeks to "exact revenge" on his government.
Seyyed Reza Sadrulhusseini, an Iranian Middle East analyst, echoed Matar's views.
"The American's thought that Baghdad would be more cooperative with them. However, the policies of Abdul-Mahdi, the Iraqi parliament and its president did not allow Washington to achieve its goals," he said.
Hussien Sheikholeslam, another political analyst, highlighted that Iraq's current troubles are largely rooted in the "corrupt system set up by the Americans in the country following the overthrow of Saddam".
Sheikholeslam said the current tensions are a product of American plans seeking to weaken "the Resistance", an alliance that has gradually formed in the region in a bid to counter foreign-backed intervention in the Middle East.