Iraq can ask for Russian help amid Turkey incursion: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with E. Michael Jones, an editor of the Culture Wars Online Magazine, in Indiana, about Baghdad’s reaction to the reported incursion of Turkish military units into the Iraqi territories.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Well, first it was Turkey downing a Russian bomber, now deploying hundreds of troops into Iraq. What is Turkey actually trying to do here?

Jones: Yeah, well, it seems this is a double standard here, doesn’t it? I mean that the Russian airplane at the most flew over this little sliver of Turkish airspace for a number of seconds and that’s a ‘big violation’ of their sovereignty. But, yet they get to send the troops into Iraq.

It seems to me that the NATO is using Turkey as their cat’s paw. This is the way that they’re fighting back against the Russians. This is the way they’re countering the Russian offensive that they launched a few weeks ago. And it’s very clear; that’s what’s going on here.

Press TV: Do you think the UN Security Council is going to react to the story? It is a breach of Iraq’s sovereignty; and given that the United States was aware of the troop deployment, what does that tell us?

Jones: It tells us that the Russians made a significant inroad in stopping Daesh by bombing those oil tankers, those gasoline tankers, that were coming out of Syria. That was the financial lifeline of ISIS or Daesh, and the Russians cut it off. And that immediately influenced Turkey, because Turkey was enabling this. Turkey was cooperating from… Erdogan’s son was involved in this whole operation. And so, it shows how effective the Russian attack has been.

Press TV: Does Iraq have any say when it comes to its sovereignty given that the United States earlier said it’s going to send troops there and then now we have Turkey with this measure taken?

Jones: Well, obviously the biggest violation of Iraq’s sovereignty [took] place with the 2003 American invasion of the country. Once you do that, once you destroy their military, you destroy their borders, it becomes obvious that they’re going to be the equivalent of having no immune system; they can’t protect themselves. OK? And they’re going to be viable to succumb to these opportunistic diseases, these attacks from foreign countries like the one that Turkey is perpetrating right now. This is the chaos that that invasion has unleashed there.

Press TV: What options does Iraq have when it comes to protecting its sovereignty?

Jones: It can ask for Russian [and] Arab support. I suppose it could do that, couldn’t it? It can ask for the Iranians to move further. It can ask for Iranian help on the ground, because the Iranians are supporting the Iraqis at this point.

That’s what is going to have to happen, seems to me, and then hope that once they reach a stalemate, that they come to some type of negotiated settlement.

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