IRAN IS NOT THE ONLY RESPONDER TO US MURDER. IRAQ EXPELS US TROOPS!

Vyince Dhimos answered a question at Quora.
                                            
https://www.quora.com/Should-the-US-really-fear-a-retort-from-Iran/answer/Vince-Dhimos
 
SHOULD THE US REALLY FEAR A RETORT FROM IRAN
 
Vince Dhimos, Editor-in-Chief at New Silk Strategies (2016-present)
 
Yes, but perhaps it doesn’t realize how close it is to war. After all, as I posted at Quora, the motive for the attacks is not to start a war but to get Trump re-elected this year. Vince Dhimos's answer to Is Iran really that much of a threat to the United States of America?
 
There is a report that the US sent to Iran, via the Swiss embassy there, a request that Iran give a “proportionate response” to the Soleimani killing. The report comes from Iran so it is hard to confirm, but Reuters did indeed report that the US sent a message, though without reporting any details about it.
 
Iran says US has asked for ‘proportionate response’ to Soleimani’s killing
 
If this is true, the US administration is hopelessly naive. Or rather, I should say that this is further evidence of its hopeless naivete (which is already proven) and it suggests that the president thinks he has power over Iran that he certainly does not have. It would prove my thesis that the US does not want war, just re-election of Trump. A very dicey method! Yet, traditionally, the US public has, in its vast majority, failed to see the sneakiness of US presidents using this tactic near the end of their first term to garner re-election. If they could shed the blinders, voters would reject such a president, realizing that he is gambling with their lives and security for political gain. Ominously, the forums of news and political commentary sites are replete with comments by Americans reminding that Soleimani led the fight against the US in Iraq – as if helping an ally repel an illegal deadly attack that ultimately killed an estimated 180,000 civilians, is a war crime. Yet such massive slaughter of civilians can by some measures, be deemed a war crime. So how is trying to prevent a war crime a problem? For the US public, however, whatever their master tells them to think – not what their own minds would tell them if they allowed their own minds to formulate conclusions – is law.
 
Iran has vowed revenge and the new commander replacing Soleimani has said the West should “be patient” and expect seeing bodies of dead Americans all over the Middle East. He no doubt meant Iran and its allies would be targeting US bases and assets.
 
Iran in mourning, vows revenge for Qassem Soleimani's killing
 
The problem for the US is that, while it naively thinks only Iran is a threat to US interests, the entire Shia world now sees the US as an implacable enemy. And since most Assad-loyal Syrians, including the Syrian Arab Army, are Sunnis, not the usual suspects the Shia, it is not by far just the Shia. After all, the Burson-Marsteller poll shows that the Arab world deems the US an enemy.
 
The Iraqi — not Iranian — government is weighing asking the US troops to leave their country.
 
While Pompeo tweeted a video clip of Iraqis supposedly protesting Iran’s presence in their country, most protests in recent months targeted the US presence, and now for the first time, PM Mahdi, who had been moderately pro-US in the past, is asking the parliament to oust the Americans. You see the vast discrepancy between what the US Establishment tells us and the actual truth on the ground?
 
This naivete of US officials could be disastrous for them.
 
Iraq's PM says parliament must remove foreign troop presence as soon as possible
 
Regardless of how the parliament votes, this statement by Mahdi is strong evidence that the Iraqis are also sick and tired of US interference in their affairs.
 
UPDATE: As I was putting the finishing touches on this post, the WSJ announced that the Iraqi parliament just voted to expel the US and its coalition:
 
“Iraq’s parliament voted in favor of expelling U.S. troops, after the killing of an Iranian general there put the country at the center of an escalating conflict between its two most important allies.”
 
Surprise, Mr. President. While Pompeo tweeted a video clip supposedly showing Iraqis protesting Iranian presence in their country, their main gripe has always been the US presence.

Further, since I started typing this response, I found this report that blasts have hit the Baghdad area since the Soleimani murder.
 
The days of violent protests against the US, the breaching of the US embassy prior to the Soleimani murder, and the Iraqi parliament vote to oust the US in the wake of the murder makes you wonder about the video clip that Pompeo tweeted supposedly showing Iraqis “dancing” in the street in celebration of the murder, especially since these Iraqis were not dancing but running down the street. Were they celebrating the murder of one of the leaders of their liberation movement, as Pompeo so cheekily claimed, or were they protesting the US presence? At any rate, the aforementioned vote makes it clear that Iraq wants the US – not the Iranians, their Shia brothers – out. No Establishment tweets, real or fake, can change that.

Now when GW Bush invaded Iraq on the basis of a false claim of WMDs, his deception was widely publicized, for the most part, long after the war was over. But here we see the Establishment narrative unravelling even before the body is in the ground!
 
It is only the beginning, folks.