American military presence in ME for promoting ‘US imperial agenda’: Analyst

The presence of American military forces in the Middle East is not for protection of the countries in the region but for promoting the “US imperial agenda,” and similarly in the case of Iraq, it's for “increasing the occupation” of the Arab country, says an author and political commentator in Chicago.

Stephen Lendman made the remark in a phone interview with Press TV on Sunday, while commenting on a US plan to pull its troops out of northeastern Syria and move to western Iraq.

“The idea of US forces anywhere in the Middle East has nothing whatsoever to do with protecting the countries; That’s for occupying and controlling or trying to control [those countries]. It has everything to do with  the US imperial agenda and of course the main strategy the US uses by smashing other nations, attacking and waging aggression against them and using hostile tactics,” Lendman said.

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced on Saturday that, “The US withdrawal continues apace from northeastern Syria," noting that the process is being conducted via aircraft and ground convoys.

Esper put the number of US forces moving to Iraq at about 1,000, saying, “The current game plan is for those forces to re-position into western Iraq."

Esper also claimed that the US troops going into Iraq will have two missions, including helping "defend Iraq" and performing an alleged campaign against the Daesh terrorist group.

PressTV-US troops leaving Syria will move to Iraq: Pentagon

Defense Secretary Mark Esper says all American troops pulling out of northeastern Syria will be stationed in western Iraq.

“Moving them (the troops) to Iraq has nothing, nothing to do with descending on Iraq; Everything’s to do with increasing the occupation of Iraq that’s illegal, the government should not go along with it. I think most of the parliamentarians in Iraq oppose it but the US puppet leadership wants it,” Lendman said.

“The idea of combating ISIS is one of the big lies, one of the many big lies of all US wars. The US created ISIS, created al-Qaeda, created its al-Nusra offshoot, created other terrorist groups in the region and elsewhere like Boko Haram in Nigeria, and uses them as imperial foot soldiers, Pentagon foot soldiers, CIA foot soldiers," he added, using an acronym to refer to the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

In a major U-turn in the US military policy, the White House announced on October 6 that the US would be withdrawing its forces from northeastern Syria, clearing the path for an expected Turkish incursion into the region.

Three days later, Turkey launched the offensive with the aim of purging the northern Syrian regions near its border of US-backed Kurdish militants, whom it views as terrorists linked to local autonomy-seeking militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).    

On Thursday, Ankara agreed to pause its incursion into Syria for 120 hours while the US facilitates the withdrawal of Kurdish militants from a 20-mile safe zone along the Syrian-Turkish border.

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