…Washington and Israel accuse [Popular Mobilization Forces] of being proxies for Iran. The site attacked on Wednesday houses barracks for regular soldiers, but it is a base shared with PMF units…
“Until now, they hadn’t attacked Iraqi soldiers…”
The ruling Shia coalition government finds it difficult to disarm the militias, as requested by U.S. President Donald Trump, especially in the context of a regional war where taking sides against Iran would mean aligning with the “Zionist enemy” [referring to Israel].
…“The U.S. A-10 is using bases in Jordan; Arab countries are already joining the war,”…
After decades of joint training exercises between U.S. Marines and Iraqi soldiers, including with the PMF fighters who battled ISIS, resentment toward the U.S. is growing. “We’ve been allies for so long, but the only one they provide air cover for is Israel,”…
My guess is that Trump is going to piss off as many countries in the middle east as he can until they launch an attack on the US.
Then he can invoke the NATO treaty to drag Europe into their pointless war. If they refuse, he’d use it as an argument to pull the US out of NATO.
Either way he’s going to harass Muslims in the US because of it.
Article 5 doesn’t apply if you started it.
If the US invokes it, allies will not follow, and NATO is finally dead.
“We didn’t start a war, we started a special operation”
“Oh OK then. By the way, Article 5 doesn’t mandate a military response, only “support through any action the allies deem necessary”. Against this mighty foe, our pathetic European military can’t do anything. You need help from a higher power, so we’ll send some thoughts and prayers your way.”