• Death toll exceeds 600 since October with 12 reported killings this week alone
• Verified resumed use of live ammunition and deadly ‘smoker’ grenades to kill protesters
• Ongoing wave of intimidation, arrests and torture​

​Chilling eyewitness testimonies and verified video analysis by Amnesty International confirm that security forces have resumed their campaign of deadly violence against largely peaceful protesters in Baghdad and cities in southern Iraq, the organization warned today.

قلق متزايد من قبل المنظمات الانسانية في العراق بسبب امتناع الحكومة في بغداد عن اعطاء الموافقات لعمل تلك المنظمات التي تخدم ما يقارب مليون نازح
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​The Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, Marta Ruedas, expressed her strong concern today regarding the suspension in granting access letters to humanitarian actors in the country.

As of the first week of January 2020, access letters for almost all humanitarian actors carrying out critical missions in support of Iraq’s vulnerable people had expired, and no new authorizations have been issued. Aid deliveries throughout Iraq slowed considerably since November 2019, due to the discontinuation of previously agreed-upon access authorization procedures, and the absence of viable alternative mechanisms.

Humanitarian operations in Iraq may come to a complete halt within a matter of weeks if humanitarian partners are not allowed to immediately resume full, unimpeded movement of their personnel and supplies. Hundreds of thousands of people across the most conflict-affected areas face going without food, medicine and winterization materials during the coldest months of the year.

Young Iraqis who drove mass protests demanding sweeping political reforms are worried that the conflict between the U.S. and Iran, which is playing out in part on Iraqi soil, is killing their momentum.
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Even before the U.S. drone attack that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the 4-month-old protests against government corruption, poor services and rising Iranian influence in state affairs were beset by internal divisions. A violent security crackdown heightened tensions, leading to hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries as well as targeted killings of sympathizers.

And in the stormy aftermath of the U.S. drone strike that also killed top Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, avoiding another war in Iraq became a top priority for state officials as they scrambled to contain hostilities between Washington and Tehran.

“We are afraid that the uprising is being forgotten and (officials) are focusing on things we don’t want, not our main goals,” said Noor, an activist in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square who asked to be identified only by her first name, fearing reprisal, like all other protesters interviewed for this story. “On the other hand, we are trying to be calm and keep people on the street to make the point that we are not with the Americans or the Iranians. We are with Iraq.”

What ever happened to Iraq? Is it not an independent country with a democratic government thanks to the 2003 US invasion? So says Washington.

The murder of senior Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani suddenly shone a strobe light on ‘independent’ Iraq, and what we saw was not pretty.
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Welcome to the new Imperialism 101.

Iraq’s population is estimated around 39 million. The pre-war Iraq of 2003 was broken into three parts by the US-British invasion: the Shia majority; Kurds in the north; and Sunnis, with scatterings of other ethnicities. Iraq remains fragmented into hostile groups.

The Hollywood-coloured view of Iraq as democratic or sovereign has been shattered by the efforts and sacrifices made by Iraqis.

​Beyond sloganeering and racy takes on the death of Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, the world has put Iraqi voices and continuing protests on mute.

The confrontation between Tehran and Washington and the attention it commands pushed renewed violence by Iran-aligned militias against Iraqi protesters out of sight. As the war of words rages, the memory of Iraq’s 600 slain citizens grows more distant.

Across protest sites from Haboubi in Nasiriya, Tahrir in Baghdad and in Basra, balaclava-clad men fired on demonstrators and torched tents. The death toll activists cited, uncorroborated by official sources, was between three and eight. Security personnel fled as sounds of flying bullets were recorded on mobile phones.

There’s a common joke Iraqis repeat as of late. It goes something like this: “Iran is fighting to get the U.S. out of Iraq. The U.S. is fighting to get Iran out of Iraq. How about we Iraqis get out of our country and leave you to it?”

It’s an example of the fatalistic humor people have used here in recent days as the U.S. and Iran’s saber-rattling gave way to attacks aimed at each other but which mostly put Iraqis in harm’s way. Yet behind the jokes is the very serious fear of an all-out war breaking out between Washington and Tehran, with Iraq as its chessboard, and Iraqis — yet again — its pawns, if not its casualties.

For anyone visiting Baghdad, which was dubbed the “City of Peace” by its founders but which has seen little of it since the U.S. invasion in 2003 and even before, signs of that fear are inescapable.
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They show up in the whir of helicopter rotors and drones, now a fixture in the soundtrack of the capital’s daily life. Or in the traffic, with streets normally snarled with cars well into the night relatively clear once the workday is done. Cafes, restaurants, even supermarkets stand half-deserted.

'Repercussions mount over U.S. strike, with Iran nuclear deal pullback and Iraq call for U.S. troop pullout,' the Los Angeles Times tells us, waiting 14 paragraphs to explain the resolution is not binding.

​Millions of casual news consumers began their week believing that over the weekend, Iraq expelled the U.S. military from the country. The United States, they thought, now faced the decision to quickly leave or illegally occupy.

Had they flicked through many of the cable or network stations, or read a few headlines on their phones or at the gas station, these Americans had heard the president’s decision to kill the general of Iran’s elite Quds force was made with no understanding of the potential reactions. If they read The New York Times or caught any of its parroting on friendly news shows, they might even think the president had “stunned” the Pentagon officials who had only offered the kill option “to make other options seem reasonable.”

The problem presented here is none of these three scenarios is accurate. The U.S. military is not currently under any order to leave Iraq, though in America’s interest they should, and they might. Further, the Pentagon does not present a president with military options that’s ramifications have not been considered, nor does the chairman of the Joint Chiefs ever present the president a fake option.

The latest spat between Iran and America marks an important departure point from Washington’s policy of tolerance towards Tehran inside the hottest proxy theatre; Iraq. The alliance that both unwittingly entered into following Saddam’s toppling has soured beyond repair.

For 17 years, both sides exercised restrained tolerance so as to not unsettle their mutual ownership (unwritten of course) of Iraq; a country abundantly rich in resources and ripe with investment opportunities after local firms were crushed by liberalism and its invisible hand.

It was always a dangerous tango that has ended after American president Donald Trump sounded the deathknell after ordering the assassination of Qods force leader Qassem Soleimani. Iraqis have been asking, why did it take so long? What prompted an escalation in US foreign policy after years of skating on a low-intensity conflict that has been cooking on low heat since 2003. These are questions that international media does not want to inconvenience itself by asking.

As tolerance of their colliding agenda’s waned, both fell out of alignment and grew increasingly hostile towards not each other but rather, Iraq. Iran has had greater successes in magnetising meek politicians that hold the reigns of the country’s Muhasasa system of political apportionment.  Many of these figures were raised up by Iran and groomed to fight against their own country in the 80s. Back to the main question in hand, what tipped Trump over the edge.

Tensions between the United States and Iran have reached a new high in the past few days in a manner not seen since perhaps the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Events were kicked off last Friday night by a rocket attack against a military base near Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, that houses U.S. service personnel and other citizens.

The attack killed an American contractor and wounded several service members, drawing the ire of the White House, which authorized retaliatory strikes on Sunday against Kataib Hezbollah targets in Iraq and Syria, the pro-Iran Iraqi group cited by Washington as being responsible for the Kirkuk assault. The Trump administration intended to send a message not to cross the United States — unfortunately, that message was either not received or completely misread.
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Not long after a funeral procession was held on Tuesday for the dozens of Shiite militants who were killed in the U.S. strikes, a large crowd of angry Kataib Hezbollah supporters as well as members of other militant groups connected to Tehran marched into the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad and proceeded to storm the U.S. Embassy.

​Iraqi protesters who have demonstrated against Iranian influence in their country since October have been mercilessly killed by Iraqi security forces in recent months. Yet it seems that activists loyal to establishment-backed militias can gain access to a secured area without a single shot being fired. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is the largest of its kind in the world and was meant to project American might and presence in the region.

Iranian backed militias seem just as powerful as they did before this latest escalation as demonstrated by the ongoing crisis at the US embassy in Baghdad.

It is somewhat unsurprising that the final major event of last year in the Middle East would take place in Iraq. 

While the murder of the Syrian people by the Assad regime and their Russian allies remains ongoing in Idlib, this is a continuation of the same tragic tale.
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Only in Iraq, however, was there the perfect storm of events and actors that would ultimately lead to the US embassy in Baghdad being stormed and partially set ablaze by pro-Iran militants.