Iraq is a big and important neighbor of Syria. The social problems that are driving angry young people into the streets now, and the government that has killed at least 100 of them are all products of the US invasion, which destroyed Ba'athist socialism and privatized the economy, creating a new class of corrupt elites. The US invasion also, as everyone knew it would, increased the influence of Iraq's large and powerful neighbor, Iran. After all, the US claimed to be acting on behalf of Iraq's Shiites, who had close ties to Iran.
The rise of Shiite militias in Iraq was also predictable, and they became crucial both in resisting the US military presence and in the fight against ISIS. But now the US is trying to turn popular discontent about the lack of jobs and services into a revolt against "Iranian influence," and will stoke any sectarianism and chaos to achieve that. This also would be enormously damaging to Syria.
So, as he does not seem to, we must understand the impact of Trump's see-sawing in Syria in the context of the larger Israeli-American-Saudi project to break the increasing political and military power of, and alliances among, Iranian-supported countries and groups-a goal which, the neocons know, can only be achieved by breaking the power of Iran itself. Trump's "withdrawal" from Syria, half-assed as it turned out to be, did weaken that project-and earned him a new level of bipartisan contempt and mistrust that weakens him in the face of the impeachment assault.
But the state-destroying project continues against Syria and any other recalcitrant actor in the region, a project whose necessary requirement and ultimate goal is destroying Iran. At this point, economic siege, financial sanctions, and the hijacking of mass movements of popular discontent are emerging as weapons much more dangerous than any oil revenue from Deir Ezzor.
In the melee of punches thrown and missed, you gotta know where the deadly knives are.
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Related articles: The Empire Steps Back: Trump Withdraws From Syria - Impeachment Now Possible; Dead Man's Hand: The Impeachment Gambit
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