Why Is US Targeting Election Winners in Iraq?

Rasa - The US government is seeking to sanction more than a dozen of the Iraqi legislators who won last month’s parliamentary elections.

News ID: 438003

Date: 01 June 2018 - 23:48

RNA - The House of Representatives claims it unanimously voted last week on legislation requiring President Donald Trump to sanction “persons that are officials, agents, affiliates of or owned and controlled by” two prominent Shiite groups that operate in Iraq and Syria.

This is far from the truth. They are not doing this because those winners are controlled by Iran. They do it because they don’t give a damn about democracy.

According to Fars News Agancy, this is the same US that also props up despotic and racist regimes in place like Saudi Arabia and Israel. Quite the opposite, the Trump administration has taken an increasingly hawkish approach to Iran following the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal earlier last month. This is irrespective of the fact that Iran is the only democracy in the Persian Gulf - far more democratic than the regimes Washington would like to arm and support.

However, other than potential sanctions on the 14 Iraqi parliamentarians, it is clear that such measures are taken to ensure Washington can continue to occupy Iraq and do business with Baghdad as Iraqi politicians attempt to create a new anti-US coalition.

There is more: The last world survey on the strength of democracy by the World Values Survey, a respected research association with the United Nations, indicates that in the US, the number of Americans who approve the idea of ‘having the army rule’ has increased from 1 in 15 in 1995 to 1 in 6 now. And while a strong 72 percent of those born before World War Two assigned living in a democracy the highest value on a scale of 1 to 10, for those born after 1980, less than 30 percent did.

If this is what Americans want then it’s hopeless to expect any “democratic” miracles from their officials and representatives, much less expect the US government to promote democratic values and practices in other parts of the world.

To this, there is of course a simple explanation. Democracy is a tool with which to destroy other nations. For those who have lived through the horrors of the Middle Eastern wars, it’s a pretext to invade, destroy and regime change. In consequence, now everybody sleeps with fear of being hit at night by America’s democratic bombs and humanitarian invasions.

In short, America doesn’t care about democracy. To be a democracy Washington must be able to show the peoples interest in their governments in other parts of the world. This country does not do such a good job in making other people’s opinion heard. By sanctioning new Iraqi legislators, the US wants to ensure the anti-US, anti-occupation voice of Iraqi voters is not heard as loud as they would like. Notwithstanding, the new Iraq saying no to American war and occupation does not mean that it is not a democracy. Iraq is only one in a chain of democracies that have decided to stand up to the US bullying, oppression and hypocrisy.

847/940