The biggest news of the week has been the withdrawal of the final contingent of US troops from Iraq, marking the end of a long and storied legacy of US occupation. Officially, it marks the end of Operation Inherent Resolve, which itself was a carry over from Operation Iraqi Freedom that began the Iraq War in early 2003.
CENTCOM: U.S. Central Command completed the orderly departure of U.S. forces and equipment from Erbil Air Base, Sept. 30, marking the end of the Operation Inherent Resolve mission in Iraq.
It is reported that the remaining task force aimed at countering ISIS has been moved out of Erbil in northern Iraq to Jordan:
The US military command that oversees the Middle East, CENTCOM, said that the task force overseeing anti-ISIL operations has been relocated to Jordan, with hundreds of US troops still stationed in Syria.
All told, the base in Erbil had hosted 1,500 US and other coalition forces prior to the departure, according to CENTCOM.
In some ways it is merely a symbolic move at this point, given that the US is still fully entrenched in the Middle East with bases throughout the region, so the occasion is really more a milestone for Iraq and its own national sovereignty, rather than a momentous geopolitical juncture. It evokes the end of an era, a post-9/11 political and dare I say spiritual zeitgeist that closes another in a long line of bloody chapters of American imperialism.
One can even argue that Iraq had served its purpose. One of the real reasons for the persistence of the phony “Inherent Resolve” mission was to use ISIS as a cover for waging war on Syria’s Assad. We had spoken many times about the importance that Syria held from many different strategic perspectives:
1. It was a territory necessary for Israel to be able to strategically operate against Iran, and in the future, Turkey.
2. It was important for checking Russian influence in the region, which is an ambiguous way of saying stopping Russia from shoring up and saving Iran from the deconstruction the Zio-American axis had planned for the Persian state.
3. In more obscure religious and eschatological terms, it was necessary for Israel to eventually carry out its Greater Israel lebensraum plan.
All of this plays into the greater and overall Heartland theory, which you can read about here:
How the USSR's Fall Unleashed a Neocon Goldrush to the Heartland
Many people are aware of the various disparate geopolitical events of the 1990s and their respective imports—from the dissolution of the USSR, to the rise of the American Neocon movement to center stage, which precipitated the imperialist military actions of the end of the 20th to the 21st centuries. But few recognize the essential teleological link bin…
Now that the project to take down Assad has come to an end, “Inherent Resolve” has become a redundant pretense. Of course, a US troop presence in Iraq would have theoretical benefits for further war against Iran, but we’ve learned that putting troops in such close proximity is a death wish, particularly given that Iraq itself is crawling with pro-Iranian militias; US troops there would be in constant peril.
We’ve seen this week how the Pentagon released various updated counts of injured troops which likely still belies the true situation that we’re only getting a glimpse of:
For his part, Trump boastfully announced the withdrawal in what appeared to be an attempt to take political credit, when in reality the deal to withdraw by September 30, 2026 at the very latest was made by Biden and the Iraqi PM in 2024, and it was Trump who essentially “ran out the clock” to the very last moment:
The rest of his rant is equally mendacious, given that it was Russia that broke ISIS’s back and Trump had nothing to do with the group’s “decimation”. Likewise, he criticizes Biden for causing many Americans to be “badly wounded” in the Afghanistan withdrawal, yet doesn’t appear to share the same concern for the hundreds wounded against Iran in a war he pointlessly started for Israel.
We’ll see a future president repeating the same gimmicky shtick about withdrawing the regional troops now being used against Iran, and how the previous administration’s follies led to pointless dead and wounded. Rinse and repeat ad nauseam: it is the American imperialist samsara.
In the meantime, the US and Iran continue to go back and forth over who controls the strait, and just how much daily oil is actually passing through.
Several days ago the most striking example of this growing schism occurred when Iran claimed to have struck no less than 19 violating ships in a single day, a fact quickly denied by US command which countered that not a single ship was struck. The widening epistemological discrepancies of this “war of paradoxes” over the Schrodinger’s Straits have now simply become an issue of faith based on which side’s gospel you more devoutly subscribe to.
The truth appeared to be something in the middle: there was evidence that several vessels were struck, neither 19 nor zero.
At the same time, there are claims that an increasing number of vessels do sneak past at night via the US-facilitated Omani route. Now Saudi Arabia reports that the East-West pipeline has already been restarted, though reports claim only “partially” as the three struck pumping stations remain offline. The linked NYT piece claims 3.5 million barrels per day, out of a previous 5-7 or so have been restored, presumably through the newly redirected pipeline with lower flow rates.
Videos like the one below give us a wild glimpse into how some of the work-arounds in the region have been working. This particular scene reportedly shows hundreds of tankers rushing oil from Iraq through Syria to the Mediterranean to bypass the Hormuz blockades:
Claims that Iran is “losing” or has “overplayed its hand” continue to be made owing to the fact that oil is still being transported out of the region. Recall that Iran is not the aggressor, and did not start the war: as such, its objectives are merely to outlast the attacker whose stated objectives include the overthrow of the Iranian government and capitulation of the entire state.
So, how could Iran be “losing” when the attacking side is now desperately fighting no longer to complete its original objectives, but rather to restore the status quo ante bellum of the strait being open and economic life lines returning to normal? In other words: whatever amount of oil manages to bypass the strait, it is still far less oil than was flowing before the war even started, and it is the US now being forced to fight an uphill battle of simply resetting the situation to what it was before the conflict.
Now things have reverted to the same old play: Trump predictably awaits the end of the midterms to resume bombing, while Iran refuses to give an inch:
What greater boost to midterms ratings could there be than an overwhelmingly decisive victory against Iran? Logic thus dictates that if Trump actually thought he could win or do some kind of decisive damage, he would do it now and ride a wave of triumphalism into midterms glory.
Instead, he knows any further bombing would be a disastrous black hole of sunk-cost-fallacy making, and has resigned to putting off his inevitable disaster.
In a new interview Iran’s FM Abbas Araghchi responds to Trump’s post-midterms plan by explaining that Iran remains ready for even a “doomsday” scenario in war against the US:
For Iran, the conflict is of course existential. For Trump, it israeli just ego.
60% of the lost capacity of Iranian petrochemical plants, which were damaged during the war with the United States and the Zionist regime, has been restored.
The CEO of Iran's National Petrochemical Company: The restoration process is progressing successfully in Asaluyeh and Mahshahr, two major petrochemical centers. Efforts are being made to restore a significant portion of the lost capacity by the end of this year.
That restoration on the West would have taken 10 years and $50bn dollars.
Of course, the man Trump takes orders from is conveniently ready with a new batch of “smoking gun” evidence to stoke the fires of the war’s continuation:
What’s most interesting about the nuclear angle is that Trump was just asked why Kim Jong Un can have nukes but Iran can’t. Trump’s response is hypocritical equivocating for the ages:
According to Trump, North Korea is allowed to have nukes because Kim is different to the Iranian leader. But how could that be? Firstly, Kim has openly threatened to nuke the US multiple times, whereas no Iranian leader has done so. Secondly, which Iranian leader is he referring to? If the war was started because Trump didn’t agree with a particular leader’s stance on nukes, then why is it still going on when the previous Iranian leader has already been killed in US attacks? Trump himself multiple times claimed he no longer even knows who is leading Iran.
Unlike Iran, North Korea actually possesses both the nukes and the delivery vehicles capable of reaching the US, not to mention the leader ready to use them. Trump’s statements are, of course, just puerile deflections. We all know what israeli going on.
Now that “the end of history” is itself history with the Liberal Crusader forces having been kicked from the lands of Ur and Nineveh, how long do you reckon it will be before a Third Crusade is launched to snake back in and regain lost glories? 2035 or so?
Or will Neo-Babylon see its long-promised fall before being able to muster up another stab at the Heartland?
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The US continues to control Iraq's oil revenues, and has left Iraq weak and fragmented, and consequently, no threat to Israel (which is the real reason for the invasion). The US doesn't need to occupy Libya, either, after smashing everything up.
Yes, the invasion was barbaric, wanton and expensive. Those who orchestrated it pay no price, not personally or professionally (in fact, many of the architects are still hailed as Serious Thinkers and Foreign Policy Heavyweights), so why should they care?
And for those who still think the Americans did a good thing - were Dubya to stroll unguarded in Sadr City, how would the locals greet him?
You can bet the CIA is still in Iraq, especially with 'contractors' @ Harir Air Base near Ebril. The US government will be paying much higher rent however.