US President Donald Trump has
threatened sanctions against Iraq.
This is as a result Iraq’s
parliament call for immediate evacuation of US troops from the country.
Tensions have been on the rise in
the Middle East since Friday morning when US airstrike hit Iraq’s capital of
Baghdad, killing Iranian army General, Qassem Soleimani and other top military
officers.
There have been threats and
counter threats coming from Washington and Tehran.
Trump had issued a strong warning
to Iran, vowing to hit 52 Iranian sites “very hard” if the Middle East country
attacked Americans or United States assets.
Trump’s threat came after Iran
earlier said it had identified 32 US sites to strike in retaliation for the
killing of Soleimani.
Speaking on Air Force One on
Sunday, the American leader said that if Iraq asked US forces to leave and it
was not done on a friendly basis, “we will charge them sanctions like they’ve
never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.”
Trump also said Iraq would have
to pay for the cost of the airbase.
“We have a very extraordinarily
expensive air base that’s there,” he said.
“It cost billions of dollars to
build, long before my time. We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it.”
Reacting to this latest threat,
Nader Hashemi, the Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the
University of Denver told Al Jazeera Trump’s comments were cause for concern.
“This is someone who is
completely surrounded by war hawks, is driven by his ego and is in a
re-election campaign,” Hashemi said.
“I think he’s calculating that
this type of tough rhetoric plays well with his domestic base.”
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