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Vol. 80/No. 18      May 9, 2016

 
(front page)

Washington, Moscow seek to impose
new Mideast ‘order’

 
BY MAGGIE TROWE
Washington and Moscow are scrambling to hold together an agreement to impose some stability and order in Syria and the broader Mideast region. But the competing interests of different ruling classes and factions, including between the U.S. and Russian governments themselves, keep getting in the way. Millions of workers and farmers in the region pay a terrible price for the ongoing bloodshed.

Talks on ending the five-year war in Syria hit a stumbling block when forces opposing the regime of President Bashar al-Assad declared a pause in their participation April 18. They accused the Syrian government of refusing to end hostilities or to allow humanitarian aid to reach 15 besieged towns. U.N. envoy Steffan de Mistura has asked Moscow, Washington and regional powers to help get the negotiations going again.

More civilians were killed in Aleppo April 22 when Syrian and Russian warplanes bombed the opposition-held city to back up ground attacks by government troops and their Iranian allies.

Since the reduction of hostilities brokered by Washington and Moscow began in late February, anti-Assad protesters have been coming out for street demonstrations, an echo of the mass mobilizations demanding Assad’s ouster in 2011. Assad responded then with massive military force, initiating the war that has killed close to half a million people and displaced millions.

In this context, brutal anti-working-class Islamic State forces have seized sections of Syria and Iraq, increasing the misery of residents. That reactionary group is a terrorist split from al-Qaeda and backed by military commanders who previously served the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.

President Barack Obama announced April 25 Washington will send 250 special forces to Syria, bringing the total to 300. This follows a deployment of additional troops to Iraq. These moves, he said, aim to strengthen the fight against Islamic State in both countries.

Divisions in Iraq

In Iraq, the Shia-led government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi faces a political and economic crisis exacerbated by the drop of oil prices and friction among the country’s three ethnic populations. Shia Arabs in the southeast have close ties with Iran. Some are organized into militias hostile to Sunni Arabs in central Iraq, as well as to Kurds in the autonomous region in the oil-rich north, who are calling for independence.

Fighting broke out between Shiite militias and Kurdish peshmerga troops in Tuz Khurmatu north of Baghdad April 24, but the next day leaders of both groups announced a truce. Many thousands responded to a call by powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr — long an opponent of Washington’s role in Iraq — for a “million-man march” in Baghdad April 25 to protest government corruption and demand Abadi appoint a new cabinet.

Washington is backing the Iraqi military and Kurdish forces in northern Iraq with airstrikes, part of its effort to drive against Islamic State. The Iraqi government says it is preparing to take Mosul, the largest city held by Islamic State. Top Pentagon officials, concerned about the state of the government and its army, have visited Iraq recently to consult on the offensive.

“Ensuring that a cohesive, well-equipped Iraqi force advances into Mosul is at the core of the renewed U.S. mission in Iraq,” the Washington Post wrote April 21. U.S. military leaders are trying “to make up for flaws exposed in the [Iraqi] army’s partial collapse in the same city in 2014.”

Tehran protests U.S. sanctions

A key component of Washington’s course in the Mideast is to move toward better working relations with the Iranian government to advance U.S. interests in the region. That was the aim of the “nuclear deal” negotiated with Tehran last year.

Following an April 19 meeting at the U.N. with Secretary of State John Kerry on implementation of the deal, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told the New York Times that Washington needs to assure European countries they may do business in Iran without fear of being penalized. The agreement lifted some nuclear-related sanctions against Tehran, but the U.S. government maintains others prohibiting Iranian access to U.S. banks and limiting its use of the dollar.

At the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court, with State Department backing, authorized the transfer of $2.65 billion in Iranian assets Washington had frozen to relatives of those killed in attacks attributed to groups linked to Tehran — the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut and the 1996 attack on the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the ruling mocked international law and “amounts to the appropriation of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s property.”

As part of the nuclear accord and efforts to advance relations, the Obama administration announced April 22 it had agreed to buy 32 tons of heavy water — an essential component for producing nuclear weapons and power — from Iran.  
 
 
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