President Trump’s speech about Iran wasn’t just aimed at that country or the US. He also targeted NATO allies, urging members of the alliance to step up and help US efforts in the Middle East.
Source: Trump asks NATO allies for help with Iran after years of bashing the alliance : The Conversation
President Trump on Wednesday said Iran “appears to be standing down” in an address to the nation following missile attacks on two Iraqi bases housing U.S. military personnel.
Source: Trump says Iran ‘appears to be standing down’ in address to nation | TheHill
Explained: How the president’s tweet threatens to break four laws.
Source: Trump’s Latest ‘Unhinged’ Tweet On Iran Floats Possibility Of Illegal Military Action | HuffPost UK
Iraq’s parliament reportedly voted on Sunday to expel the U.S. military from the country after an American airstrike killed top Iranian military commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad.
Source: Iraq’s parliament votes to expel US military | TheHill
Mount Qarachogh, Iraq – A long mountain that juts from the flat plains like a knife today separates Kurdish Peshmerga forces and the Iraqi security forces. This is a result of clashes that took place in October 2017, almost two years ago, following the Kurdistan Regional Government’s referendum. Since the clashes there have been on-again-off-again relations between the Iraqi division commanders and their Kurdish counterparts, working together through the US-led Coalition Operation Inherent Resolve, which is supposed to be fighting and defeating ISIS.
We’d heard rumors that ISIS was still operating below this mountain, called Mount Qarachogh, since last year. The members of ISIS who were not killed during the 2014-2017 war in which the group was slowly defeated in parts of Iraq have gone to ground. These are hard core fighters or hangers-on, men for whom ISIS offers a ready-made escape from the drudgery of life and a place to go to resist what they see as an Iranian-backed Iraqi government. These ISIS networks have existed for more than a decade in one form of another, going back to the insurgency against US forces after 2003. These were a collection of jihadists, Al-Qaeda, local Ba’athists, and everything in between, as well as foreign fighters. When ISIS was powerful, at its peak in the fall of 2014, it attracted some 50,000 foreign volunteers in Iraq and Syria and ran a kind of state built on Sunni Islamist supremacy and the genocide of minorities.
Source: ‘Look, you can see ISIS down there’: How ISIS operates in Iraq today – Middle East – Jerusalem Post
Ten years ago, police caught Iraqi Chaldean immigrant Rani Yousuf with a small amount of marijuana. He completed probation, paid fines, and the conviction was dropped from his record when he turned 21.
Still, earlier this year, Yousuf found his car surrounded by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers who arrested him again over the charge. He sat for months in a Michigan county jail facing the prospect of deportation to Iraq, a country he left at four years old. He has no family there, doesn’t speak Arabic, and is part of a religious minority targeted by extremists.
“As a Catholic who has tattoos of crosses, and Iraq being a Muslim country – they probably would kill me,” he said.
Yousuf is one of over 1,400 Iraqi nationals who the Trump administration is attempting to deport. Most of those are Chaldean – Iraqi Catholics – living in metro Detroit, which holds the world’s largest Chaldean population outside of Iraq.
The administration’s deportation efforts are viewed by many Chaldeans as a shocking “betrayal”, not least because many in the community have been enthusiastic supporters of Trump and voted for him in large numbers in 2016.
The generally conservative community with between 70,000 and 80,000 voters went big for Trump in the 2016 election in a state that he won by only 10,000 votes. They did so after Trump portrayed himself as a “savior” who would stand up for persecuted Christians. “Chaldeans For Trump” signs appeared at Trump rallies and in lawns in Oakland county, a wealthy metro Detroit area where the community is concentrated.
But just months into the Trump administration, Ice swept up 350 Chaldean men and Iraqi nationals. Now, some Chaldeans hold signs at protests reminding Trump “You vowed to protect us”.
“Some people thought ‘Here comes Trump who’s talking a good game about Christians in the Middle East who are being persecuted,’” said Edward Bojoka, a Chaldean immigration attorney. “A lot of people in the Chaldean community jumped on that and said, ‘Oh, he’s on our side’, and … some people feel like they were conned.”
But while there’s unanimous disappointment in the administration’s plan to deport Chaldeans, some Chaldean leaders say they still view Trump as a “friend”.
Tony Blair spoke to BBC Newsnight on 19 March. And with one sentence, he seemed to destroy his own argument for a people’s vote on Brexit.
Since stepping down as prime minister in 2007, Blair has spent much of his time cosying up to dictators. That pursuit (and others) has made him and his family millions. He’s also taken over a million from British taxpayers, via an allowance for public engagements, even though he’s no longer in power.
But he still loves to lecture us all about democracy, of course.
Source: The humiliating moment Tony Blair destroys his own argument for a people’s vote | The Canary
Tony Blair’s latest controversy should leave Labour with no choice but to expel him from the party.
The former prime minister has escaped exile one too many times. But his actions are indefensible. And his most recent fail should surely be the final straw.
Blair has just been photographed smiling alongside Brazil’s fascist president Jair Bolsonaro. The former Labour leader met Bolsonaro at the World Economic Forum and looked more than happy posing alongside the openly racist and homophobicpresident.
Source: Tony Blair’s latest controversy is the final straw. Labour must expel him immediately. | The Canary
Madrid’s heavy-handed approach to Catalonian independence is a mistake. It’s better to compromise and allow a degree of ‘autonomy-lite’, writes Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins
Advocates say being sent back to Iraq is a “death sentence.”
Source: Trump’s Muslim ban may be getting Arab Christians in Detroit deported
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