US Meddling in Iraqi Affairs May Lead to More Casualties

US Meddling in Iraqi Affairs May Lead to More Civilian Casualties

WASHINGTON, June 20 (RIA Novosti), Lyudmila Chernova – The policy of the US administration in Iraq is to interfere in the country’s domestic affairs, which may result in more deaths among the civilian population, Francis Boyle, a Harvard-educated professor at the University of Illinois, told RIA Novosti.

“Today, it’s already been reported in America that the US diplomats are working to depose [Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri] Maliki and put somebody more pliable in his place. This would clearly constitute an illegal intervention into the domestic affairs of Iraq,” the professor said Friday.

US President Barack Obama announced Thursday that Washington will send up to 300 US military advisers to Iraq to help Bagdad repel the advance of terrorists who have gained control over a large part of the country.

The New York Times reported earlier that the US supports the Iraqi forces seeking to depose Maliki and replace him with another leader more loyal to various communities in the country.

Boyle said the announcement that 300 troops are being sent to Iraq by President Obama is a euphemism for them becoming forward air controllers for bombing strikes.

“Obama said he is preparing for ‘targeted and precise military action,’ but we have seen repeatedly in the US wars against Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, there is nothing precise about any of these bombings,” the professor said, adding: “And there will be yet again more terrible civilian casualties, and only innocent civilians are going to suffer.”

“In the first US-Iraq war, the US exterminated close to 200,000 Iraqis, then it imposed genocidal economic sanctions that killed some 1.2 million or more. Then the Bush Jr. war killed some 1.4 million Iraqis,” the professor noted. “And it looks like they are preparing to kill more. That’s always been a US policy.”

According to Boyle, the Obama administration decided to work with extremist elements in Syria to overthrow its legitimate government. But then the same extremist groups began to work in Iraq with the Sunni population in order to overthrow the Shiite government put in power by the Bush administration.

“It appears the United States is reaping the whirlwind here. It’s a terrible situation. It appears that Iraq is on the verge of a collapse as a state, if it’s not collapsed already,” the professor asserted.

Boyle claims the current situation is the result of the neoconservative agenda going back to the administration of George Bush senior in the first Gulf war in 1991.

“After the ceasefire President Bush senior first encouraged Kurds to rebel against the Saddam Hussein government. Then he encouraged the Shiite population to rebel against it. And then they instituted the so-called no-fly zones over both the Kurdish and the Shiite areas, basically permitting them to consolidate and control their own ethnically based statelets,” the professor explained. “As the culmination of the long-term policy, the country now is on the verge of a civil war.”

Boyle underlined that Iraq was the only state in the Arab world with the power to stand up to the imperial designs of the US and Israel, but is now being destroyed as a state.

“They have destroyed Iraq as a state as well as Syria, Afghanistan, and Libya. They have dismembered Sudan, and are deliberately destabilizing Pakistan, trying to crack up the country into its constituent units, and most importantly to neutralize the so-called Islamic bomb,” the professor said. “We’ve seen a consistent pattern by the United States around the Middle East, and also in the Balkans back in 1990s with respect to Yugoslavia, to crack up states, and leading to genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.”

Boyle also noted that although the election just took place, bargaining over who should be the new prime minister continues.

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