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Iran’s Status at Stake in Iraq as Ally Maliki Is Attacked

Iran , already deeply mired in Syria’s civil war, now finds itself center stage in a fight against Sunni militants threatening to topple its most important regional partner in Iraq . Iran is pledging to defend Shiite shrines in Iraq and help Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki defeat an al-Qaeda breakaway group that has routed his northern army. More than 130 members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards entered Iraq’s eastern Diyala province, which borders the Islamic republic, the BBC reported last week. The conflict will test Iran’s ability to prop up its two closest Arab allies to preserve the political influence built in the region over the past decade. The collapse of Maliki’s government, without a pro-Iranian alternative ready to take over, would cut Iran’s leverage in its power struggle with regional Sunni powers such as Saudi Arabia and in its efforts to overhaul ties with the U.S. Related: “The fragility […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Battle for Iraq refinery as U.S. hesitates to strike

Iraqi government forces battled Sunni rebels for control of the country’s biggest refinery on Thursday as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki waited for a U.S. response to an appeal for air strikes to beat back the threat to Baghdad. The sprawling Baiji refinery, 200 km (130 miles) north of the capital near Tikrit, was a battlefield as troops loyal to the Shi’ite-led government held off insurgents from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and its allies who had stormed the perimeter a day earlier, threatening national energy supplies. A government spokesman said around noon (0900 GMT) that its forces were in "complete control" but a witness in Baiji said fighting was continuing and ISIL militants were still present. A day after the government publicly appealed for U.S. air power, there were indications Washington is sceptical of whether that would be effective, given the risk […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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In Washington, growing chorus calls for Iraq's Maliki to go

President Barack Obama came under pressure from U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday to persuade Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to step down over what they see as his failed leadership in the face of an insurgency threatening his country. As Obama held an hour-long meeting with congressional leaders on U.S. options in Iraq, administration officials joined a chorus of criticism of Maliki, faulting him for failing to heal sectarian rifts that militants have exploited. Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a congressional hearing that Maliki’s Shi’ite-led government had asked for U.S. air power to help counter Sunni militants who have overrun northern Iraq. The general did not say whether Washington would meet the request. But Dempsey signaled that the U.S. military – apparently much like Obama – was in no rush to launch air strikes in Iraq, citing the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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In Washington, growing chorus calls for Iraq’s Maliki to go

President Barack Obama came under pressure from U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday to persuade Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to step down over what they see as his failed leadership in the face of an insurgency threatening his country. As Obama held an hour-long meeting with congressional leaders on U.S. options in Iraq, administration officials joined a chorus of criticism of Maliki, faulting him for failing to heal sectarian rifts that militants have exploited. Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a congressional hearing that Maliki’s Shi’ite-led government had asked for U.S. air power to help counter Sunni militants who have overrun northern Iraq. The general did not say whether Washington would meet the request. But Dempsey signaled that the U.S. military – apparently much like Obama – was in no rush to launch air strikes in Iraq, citing the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Half-Price Kurd Oil Threatens Iraq Breakup With Turkish Help

A tanker containing a million barrels of crude oil is floating around the Mediterranean, and its cargo is available at half-price. Yet if any country seizes the bargain, it may be pushing Iraq closer to disintegration. The oil aboard the tanker is at the center of a fight over its ownership between the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, which pumped and shipped the crude from its territory in northern Iraq, and the central government in Baghdad, which claims the rights to all oil revenue. Kurdish Peshmerga armed forces seized on the anarchy in northern Iraq, where militant Islamists routed the Baghdad government’s army last week, to occupy the region’s key oil hub, Kirkuk. The oil dispute has raised the possibility of the Kurdish region achieving financial self-sufficiency to go with those expanding territorial ambitions. “If that tanker docks, Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government will take an important step toward independence and […]

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Exxon, BP Evacuate Iraq Workers as Oil Drilling Continues

Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP Plc began removing employees from Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest oil producer, after Islamist militants seized cities north of Baghdad and attempted to capture a refinery. Exxon evacuated some workers from the West Qurna oil field, according to a person familiar with the company’s Iraq operations. BP Plc removed non-essential workers, Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley said June 17. Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd . moved 28 of its 166 Iraq employees to Dubai, the company said by e-mail yesterday. Royal Dutch Shell Plc isn’t evacuating staff yet and is ready to do so, Andy Brown, head of Shell Upstream International, said in an interview in Moscow. Related: The companies all said they’re continuing to pump oil and there are few signs Iraq’s production has been curbed after Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant fighters took northern cities including Mosul. Police near the Baiji refinery, the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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U.S. Signals Iraq's Maliki Should Go

U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared before a Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee as President Obama weighs next steps in dealing with the Iraq crisis. Photo: AP WASHINGTON—The Obama administration is signaling that it wants a new government in Iraq without Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, convinced the Shiite leader is unable to reconcile with the nation’s Sunni minority and stabilize a volatile political landscape. The U.S. administration is indicating it wants Iraq’s political parties to form a new government without Mr. Maliki as he tries to assemble a ruling coalition following elections this past April, U.S. officials say. Such a new government, U.S., officials say, would include the country’s Sunni and Kurdish communities and could help to stem Sunni support for the al Qaeda offshoot, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, that […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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U.S. Signals Iraq’s Maliki Should Go

U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared before a Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee as President Obama weighs next steps in dealing with the Iraq crisis. Photo: AP WASHINGTON—The Obama administration is signaling that it wants a new government in Iraq without Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, convinced the Shiite leader is unable to reconcile with the nation’s Sunni minority and stabilize a volatile political landscape. The U.S. administration is indicating it wants Iraq’s political parties to form a new government without Mr. Maliki as he tries to assemble a ruling coalition following elections this past April, U.S. officials say. Such a new government, U.S., officials say, would include the country’s Sunni and Kurdish communities and could help to stem Sunni support for the al Qaeda offshoot, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, that […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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OPEC May Bring Forward Next Meeting if Iraq Crisis Disrupts Exports

Baiji oil refinery, north of Baghdad. Reuters LONDON—The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries could meet ahead of schedule if the continuing crisis in Iraq disrupts the country’s exports of crude oil, officials from Gulf states that are members of the cartel said Wednesday. At the end of its latest meeting last week, OPEC said it would keep its production ceiling for 2014 at 30 million barrels of oil a day and would next meet on Nov. 27. But that plan could change if the oil supply from Iraq is disrupted. Iraqi oil exports currently run at around 2.5 million barrels of oil a day. The psychological impact of the Iraqi unrest has been "big on the market , and we did not calculate this could happen when we left the ceiling unchanged," one Gulf oil official said. With Libyan oil supplies also hampered by political unrest in that […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Uneasy Alliance Gives Insurgents an Edge in Iraq

Meeting with the American ambassador some years ago in Baghdad, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki detailed what he believed was the latest threat of a coup orchestrated by former officers of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. “Don’t waste your time on this coup by the Baathists,” the ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, chided him, dismissing his conspiracy theories as fantasy. Now, though, with Iraq facing its gravest crisis in years, as Sunni insurgents have swept through northern and central Iraq, Mr. Maliki’s claims about Baathist plots have been at least partly vindicated. While fighters for the extremist Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, once an offshoot of Al Qaeda, have taken on the most prominent role in the new insurgency, they have done so in alliance with a deeply rooted network of former loyalists to Saddam Hussein. The involvement of the Baathists helps explain why just a few thousand […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple