Sami Ramadani

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In announcing his new strategy to tackle the terrorist insurgency in Iraq, President Obama has put the US on a dangerous collision course with Syria, the Lebanese resistance led by Hezbollah, and the biggest obstacle to US and Israeli regional hegemony: Iran.

The so-called war on Isis (Islamic State) is, in reality, the same war that the US and Britain abandoned last year due to public opposition, the anti-war vote in Britain’s parliament, and the determination of Iran and Russia to back Syria. But the savagery of Isis and the beheading of two American hostages have dampened public opposition to further military intervention in the region, and has boosted hawks in Washington and London.…  Seguir leyendo »

With its sedate pace and genteel drip, drip revelations, one could be forgiven for thinking of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war as an academic exercise, delving into some distant historical event in an attempt to understand what happened. But to many Iraqis, the inquiry is something else entirely. It is an inconsequential charade, a classic case of fiddling while Baghdad burns.

Yesterday it was Hans Blix's turn to appear before the laid back and suitably emotionless inquisitors. The former chief UN weapons inspector revealed nothing we didn't know. He told Chilcot there was no justification for war, because his inspectors found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction; and he told them that he had needed a few more months to finish his task.…  Seguir leyendo »

It is tragic that Iraq hits the headlines only if there is a major explosion with hundreds killed and injured. Yesterday's carnage in Baghdad is the second of its kind in two months, and yet another horrific reminder that the Iraqi people are still paying with their blood for the US-led invasion and occupation of their country.

Though inevitable, there is something morally questionable in the way Afghanistan has replaced Iraq in the news headlines. As the number of casualties suffered by US forces went down in Iraq and as the equivalent numbers of US and British casualties in Afghanistan started to climb, the latter has gradually displaced Iraq in the news schedules.…  Seguir leyendo »

Within a few unlikely seconds, a pair of size 10 shoes have become the most destructive weapon the people of Iraq have managed to throw at the occupying powers, after nearly six years of occupation and formidable resistance. One Iraqi writer called the shoes, hurled by a journalist at George Bush, "Iraq's weapon of comprehensive destruction".

While the uprisings of Falluja, Najaf, Basra and Baghdad against the occupation will always remain as landmarks of a people resisting occupation, these incredible seconds have united Iraqis in the most dramatic fashion.

Contrary to most media coverage, the 28-year-old TV reporter Muntadhar al-Zaidi made history not by merely throwing a pair of shoes, the highest expression of insult in Iraqi culture, at the US president, but by what he said while doing so and as he was smothered by US and Iraqi security men.…  Seguir leyendo »

Two catastrophes have been in the making since President Bush and Tony Blair launched their war on Iraq four years ago. Both are epoch-making, and their resolution will shape regional and world politics for decades to come.The first catastrophe relates to the political and moral consequences of the war in the US and UK, and its resolution is the urgent task facing the American and British peoples. The second concerns the devastation wrought by the war and subsequent occupation, and the lack of a unified political movement within Iraq that might overcome it.

Bush and Blair are in a state of denial, only offering us more of the same.…  Seguir leyendo »