 Today is the 17th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, which happened in 2003. To talk about the legacy of the invasion, what is the current situation and what is the larger geopolitical impact of that war, we have with us Pravir Prokayastha. Hello Pravir. It has been 17 years and today there is a turmoil in Iraq, basically which we have seen that the US forces have been asked to withdraw from the country by the Iraqi parliament. And recently there was a news that the US forces have withdrawn from two of its important bases. What do you think, what do you make out of it? You know, there is also another backdrop. This is the time that we have the COVID-19 pandemic. Everybody is focusing on the pandemic itself. Iraq also is open to infections. Iran is in deep crisis at the moment, the very severe in a pandemic exhibiting itself, large number of deaths, the public hand system under really enormous pressure. And obviously this is spilling over to other regions as well. It is not that this is only restricted to Iran. So at this point, to have what the US recently did, it again bombed Iraq. Essentially what it calls Iran-led militia forces, but they're all a part of the Iraqi armed forces. So therefore it's an attack essentially on the Iraqi armed forces done by the United States, which claims to be an ally of the Iraqi government. So this is a huge anomaly politically, even otherwise, leaving out other things. And also at the moment completely heartless, because the whole global focus should be on fighting the epidemic. And everybody is trying to ratchet down this kind of small skirmishes, wars, whatever you call it. And instead of that, you have this as an expression of the US, I would call the continuation of his gunboat policy, that if I don't agree with you, I have the right to bomb you. So this is in a larger context, what the US seems to be saying, when it's decided to bomb the Iraqi armed forces auxiliaries, which are, as I said, a part of the Iraqi armed forces. They've been incorporated there and who have led the fight against ISIS in different periods. And even now are the frontline fighters for the Iraqi government against ISIS threat. It's not the United States, which liberated really most of Iraq from the ISIS. It was really these militias, the Iraqi government and supported by the Iranian Republican guards. This is really what they liberated large parts of the Iraqi land, which was at one point taken over by ISIS. So given this, this attack is not only gratuitous, but it's also politically indefensible. Two parts to this. One is that the fact the government, it's not just a parliament resolution, but the government is also asked to leave. So the question is, under what rule international law are the armed forces, US armed forces there? They are either there by the invitation of the government or they're there based on the UN Security Council resolution. As you know, the Iraq invasion took place without the United Nations Security Council. They never had the imprimatur of the United Nations. The second is still now, they could have claimed that this once set up their own puppet government, that they were there in the invitation of the government. But after elections, number of new governments that have taken place, even the allies, which is really the Iraqi government, now has asked them to leave. So there is no legal, even fig leaf that the United States has to stay there. It's a Trump said that if they pay us, we might leave. Now this is the language of, what shall we say, I talked about gunboat diplomacy or the language of brigand age, that I hold you, I have a gun to your head and either you let me stay in your house or you pay me. Now this is the language that the United States is using, but this is not defensible because you cannot hold a country down like this, using your basis within the country. It is increasingly United States troops are going to be isolated the basis that need the support of some kind. They cannot just be military enclaves in a large Iraqi hostile population against the government of the Iraqi, Iraqi government as well. So this is not a defensible or a viable proposition and as I said, Trump's logic, the United States logic is we have the right to bomb you whoever we want, we have the right to stay even if you don't want us and we will go away unless, we will not go away unless you pay us lots of money for having built the basis to occupy your country. Now this, you know, I mean, I'm sorry to say that the any sane language cannot describe what the United States is doing, but at the same time, let's also face it within the United States, there is really no reaction to all of this because in most countries, foreign affairs are a distant, not even second, a distance, 10th probably in the scheme of things that they have. Therefore this becomes then an Iraqi problem and therefore it does not impinge on quote unquote the only quotient that Trump recognizes his electability in the United States unless body bags start coming home, in which case of course this changes radically. As we know that the at this bombings have led to retaliation, the United States first bombed certain groups, militias and they are basically a part of the Iraqi armed forces today, there was retaliation, there's further bombing, so this quid pro quo has been going on. Right now the withdrawal has taken place also from smaller bases, but also two bases which are used for such attacks on the Kitabis Hezbollah, which is really not part of the Lebanese Hezbollah, but really a local militia working there. There is a report in international media that ISIS is resurgent, do you think that can be a legitimate basis for the extension of US troops in? Let's put it this way, that resurgent of ISIS cannot be the basis of any government would put its troops in another country. So the agreement of 2014 is the one which Iraqi parliament has said no longer holds and they want the US armed forces to go and they are saying that they in fact a more destabilizing factor in Iraq today than anything else that is there and they can handle ISIS on their own. Actually when the ISIS threat was its zenith, that's the time, it was really the militias, the Iraqi armed forces and Iranian republican guards who helped to stabilize and fight back against the ISIS, the Americans did not even bomb the Iraqi ISIS who had taken over large parts of the territory. So even the US armed forces did not provide the cover of the support and at the time the argument was that this was a stick to beat the Iraqi government with to give more concessions to the United States and they miscalculated because they didn't calculate for the fact that the Iranians would step in with support and that's what where the internal balance within Iraq also shifts. So this part of the 2014 agreement which they are referring to today stands really void after both the Iraqi parliament and the Iraqi government has asked them to go. You know international law is ultimately what is enforceable and the problem is Iraq cannot enforce international law against the United States, neither the security that can the security council, in any case the US can always assert its veto. So what really matters finally is what the American government can hold out against, when they hold out in Iraq against a hostile population, increasingly hostile population they seem to have acted to cement all sections in Iraq. There was a lot of dissent earlier against the government, there was also certain amount of anti-Iranian feelings because after all Iraq and Iran have border countries and they have had their own internal rivalries. But at the same time an American intervention of this kind in Iraq against a certain section of its own people against sections which are fought so valiantly against the ISIS that has turned the large sections of the Iraqi people against the United States and therefore there is at the end of it it can a invading power, in this case the United States is one because that's what they did in 2003 against all international law it by all canons of international law this should be considered a war crime. But after all of this if it thinks it can continue on the basis of a flimsy legal argument which makes sense only to a few people in the American foreign office. I don't think that's sustainable in the long run because ultimately you cannot hold a country down with arms and a few scattered bases that's really not feasible. What did the US achieve? Now the troops are going to withdraw from Afghanistan and it looks like Taliban has upper hand in all the whatever agreements they have signed and Iraq also there is a hostility as you rightly pointed out and it looks like they cannot sustain it. So after these Iraq and Afghanistan war where the wars which could have redefined the geopolitics of the larger reason what do you think the US has achieved in last roughly 20 years in the larger reason where does it stand today? You know there are really two ways of looking at the problem. One way of looking at the problem has the American hegemony which is strengthened by these two wars Afghanistan and then Iraq two invasions really. So that is one way of looking at it. The second way of looking at it what is it that they have stopped? So I think the way I look at it is that the United States has entered a far more dangerous of dangerous phase of imperialism. This militarized imperialism which sees that it is not necessary to hold countries down. It's not necessary to have colonies but if I have the ability to destroy countries then we have the ability to impose our will on the world and in the process if two, three countries are destroyed it doesn't matter to us. So if you see West Asia that for 20 years we have had wars over there. We have Libya destroyed it's really not Africa you have but it's part of the same region you have Syria, you have Iraq, you have Yemen and we also have Lebanon which is not a failed state as of now but tittering into one as various financial measures are taken against Lebanon. So all of this is basically to splinter the region destroy parts of it and ensure that Iran does not emerge as a major power. Iran also is of course not a war which has taken place in terms of a hot war but it is nevertheless a war because all the sanctions amount to war crimes in national law. So it's really a war by another means. So if we take all of this in the count I think we have to see that America's ability to control has weakened America's ability to in the United States ability to economically control regions has weakened but the United States ability to destroy countries militarily is actually increased and that's what we see in these regions that what they are doing is what I said a continuation of the gunboat diplomacy I'll destroy you if you don't surrender and I'm making examples of a few countries so everybody else fall in line. So I think that's a challenge we face and the solution or shall we say the answer to that has been partly what has been called as asymmetric war in which the forces in Yemen Iran itself the Iraqi forces have all adopted different kinds of tactics by which they're able to inflict damage on more advanced technologically advanced richer countries Saudi Arabia in the case of Yemen in the case of Iran we have seen the kind of missile power they have developed. So all of this is also changing the matrix of geo strategy and war. So it's a fluid situation is a dynamic situation in which both sides are changed their tactics but the American strategy if you will can be understood that as long as we have the destructive power we can control the world by destroying opposition we no longer will try and control them. So this is the difference from the neocolonial phase which you saw imperialism earlier in which it said will control the entire best Asian oil that was their neocolonial phase. Now their phases will see that it is linked to the dollar destroy any country which tries to delink oil from dollar but at the same time also see that there is no local challenge we can't control them but we can destroy them. I think this is the difference that you see. So I would say that what have they gained is not in terms of are they able to control the countries they've invaded but the fact they've destroyed the countries that could be problems. Afghanistan is an outlier it was not in the list of countries initially it came in only because of Bin Laden's attack or Bin Laden's 9-11 attack. Otherwise Afghanistan was not in the cross hairs that's why soon after Afghanistan you see the United States pirouettes and attacks then Iraq. So I think that is the lesson we need to learn about US imperialism that it is not what we think it is it's no longer hegemonic in the sense of control but hegemonic in the sense of its ability to destroy opponents. It's meeting opposition now Russia and China in different ways Iran regionally but we have to see how it develops. Thank you. This is all we have for today keep on watching NewsClaim. Thank you.