Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su
Around 5,000 American and NATO troops dead, countless thousands more injured, the bodies of at least 180,000 Iraqis with them in the sand, and this number could be over a million by some accounts, and anywhere up to 3 trillion dollars have gone into the abyss of national debt; this was the cost of the occupation of Iraq. Finally, the naïve and impetuous words of George Bush Jr. have become true, “Mission Accomplished” is now a fact as an ordered retreat continues to remove (almost) everything the American military had keeping Iraq under its heel. It’s over, and the question is why now, and is the American voter kind of getting what he wanted out of Trump?
Words and a quote from a Press TV article sum things up accurately and concisely regarding the nature of the end of the occupation:
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, who presided over the handover ceremony, described the withdrawal as the beginning of “a new phase” defined by Iraq’s sovereignty, stronger state institutions and “balanced partnerships with its friends.”
By ‘balanced partnerships’ he means to say the BRICS countries and the Multipolar World Order. There is often a mistake in public perception that vassal states are always obedient like employees in an office or fry cooks at McDonald’s, but this is not the case. You can’t keep a gun to someone’s head 24 hours a day and freewill will always start to creep its way into the actions of any vassal. Even during what one could call the heights of the occupation the local government was already gazing at the night sky hoping to one day get back some level of sovereignty all the while making deals with the Russians and Chinese.
Iraq had zero loyalty to Washington, why should we be surprised?
In 2025 the Iraqis made completely non-secret and public deals with the mega-sanctioned Russians in the areas of energy development. Working on energy deals with the Russians is the hot trend of the 21st century and shouldn’t be too surprising. What is unusual though is that they requested “to expand cooperation with Russia in a number of areas, including partnership and expertise in the field of artificial intelligence” according to the Prime Minister. Why they were making AI deals with Russia, who is in a proxy war against America and the West according to Marco Rubio, while still occupied by America makes one curious to say the least. The fact that the Russian Foreign Ministry declared that Iraq will “be able to respond (successfully) to any challenges” after U.S. occupation ends is also food for thought. Will “Operation Iraqi Freedom” be ultimately achieved in a much more literal sense by the Kremlin?
Even while Biden was still shaking hands with invisible men at the White House the Chinese made a deal with the Iraqis to build 1,000 schools, and potentially other structures, across their country. We have to remember that in the minds of Neocon sociopaths China is the ultimate final boss enemy, and yet even during occupation those red communists were making deals with occupied Iraq. It is also important to note that after the attacks on Iran, China and Russia can send ships not only to Iran but Iraq with zero consequences and the U.S. cannot. This makes the failed occupation of Mesopotamia even more ironic; trillions down the toilet just to lose access the Middle-East while Moscow and Beijing make whatever business deals they like in the region.
But the main point I am trying to make is that even during the middle of the occupation no robots in Baghdad truly did what they were told 100% of the time. God gave man free will and the Iraqi occupation showed that, vassals cane smile to Washington officials one day, then make calls to Beijing and Moscow with zero shame the next day.
The delicate dance of withdrawal
Just as the Iraqis did the dance of pseudo submission, so too can the occupier do the dance of incomplete withdrawal. This bit from the previously stated Press TV article shows how a cracking American empire is using the same playbook as the floundering British one of yesteryear.
A Pentagon official said that while the U.S. is ending official military operations, it will maintain regional capabilities such as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance that can be utilized in the Arab country.
That is to say, no one has yet put a wrecking ball to all of the structures in the Baghdad Green Zone, which is essentially the largest U.S. embassy in the world. The big base is staying. Just as the French still do their best to suck out money from their ‘former’ African colonies, the British keep their spies and influence in ‘the Commonwealth’ in India and beyond, Washington will surely keep some sort of abstract ‘reentry point’ and ‘local influence’ in Iraq just in case. This is something few want in America, but those Three-letter Organizations tend not to listen to us at the bottom, so perhaps this final beachhead or foothold is a fair enough compromise to end this massive waste of treasure and human life, as they say “so be it”.
One thing to also keep in mind is that right after the sloppy withdrawal from Afghanistan we did not see a global de-escalation, but instead a shift to and massive escalation in death on the upcoming Ukrainian front. It is important to note that Russian intelligence leaked twice to the media in 2021 that the big one was coming and that Ukraine would launch an offensive to slaughter everyone in the Donbass to the last. That is to say, the Russians saw themselves as having no option but to go in, all on the wake of the U.S. downsizing in the Middle-East, under Biden.
So if Washington has given up on Iraq, does that mean they may really try to take some of the islands around Iran? Will they keep the petrodollar on life support by saving the Saudis from the Houthis? Or shall they go full ‘monkey-with-a-hand-grenade’ mode and try to spice things up in Taiwan? Or is Trump really going to obey his personal version of the Monroe Doctrine and actually pull those forces back towards Fortress America? We all know which option sounds the best to the ears of U.S. taxpayers.
Donald Trump; an enigma wrapped in a mystery blown by a tornado of narratives
As mentioned above, the pullout from Afghanistan happened under Democrat Biden and the focus shifted to Russia the ultimate enemy of all Democrats for they hold the key to undoing their ideology. But the escape from Iraq has occurred under Trump, who is supposedly on a messianic quest to save America and not bring the world into one globalist ideology. It is important to note two narratives expressed by him multiple times way before his now bizarre second term.
1) Donald Trump was absolutely appalled at the chaotic Biden pullout of Afghanistan that left countless billions of military resources in the country and looked like a national humiliation ritual.
2) He expressed over-and-over a desire to get out of the Middle-East, be it Iraq, Syria or elsewhere as he saw American forces there as sitting ducks.
Well the war in Iran, that Trump either, enacted on his own, tolerated as a compromise position, or simply had no real power to stop, did indeed prove that U.S. forces are sitting ducks for the slaughter in the Middle-East. Military installations all over the region have been whacked by Iran and the casualties could be much higher than Fox News would admit to. About Iraq specifically, Trump stated in during his very first presidential campaign:
“Obviously the war in Iraq was a big fat mistake.”
“We should have never been in Iraq.”
“We have destabilized the middle east.”
“We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about.”
Of course if there is any president who ‘says a lot of things’ it would be Donald Trump, but in a weird way he is actually keeping his campaign promises. The withdrawal from the Middle-East has started and in a surprisingly orderly manner; after countless bases and weapons systems were blown up by Iran. The removal of U.S. military might which probably never should have been there will quickly ‘restabilize’ the region for nations with high sovereignty tend to, more often than not, behave in non-suicidal ways. Some of the sitting ducks, sadly being violently taken off the game board by Iran, have been cause to basically remove all of them, which is what the masses ultimately wanted from his presidency.
Trump is egotistical and a media manipulator but he is not stupid, and at the very least on this issue he seems to be delivering what the public wanted; an end to Middle-East nation building adventures. There has been lots of speculation that Trump did try to get American troops out of Syria long ago but that his ordered were ignored or manipulated. Perhaps it took the seeming debacle in Iran to actually change things. The failed attempt to break Iran, proved that the Middle-East adventure is a failure, Israel is the deciding factor in U.S. foreign policy, and that the Navy has rusted out. Perhaps acquiescing to the Zionists got Trump the political will to finally change things overseas?
Furthermore, there has been a demand for U.S. energy independence for quite some time, and well now it looks like all of it is going to be coming from the Western hemisphere, how convenient. We all know that the oil in Venezuela is troublesome and will require a lot of effort just to really use, but if the Monroe Doctrine 2.0 is going to be the name of the game, then the next president can figure that out, or maybe his successor.
In closing, the legacy of the Iraqi occupation should be for all geopolitical wonks that land empires are indeed the better option, especially in the 21st century, as games of colonization no longer work. Vassals do not always behave and in many ways they are subtly pushed to resist. Now, by the grace of God, the USA can focus on the ‘Chiraq’ back home, just like the American voter asked of Donald Trump.
