Following the breakdown of Iraqi-US negotiations, President Obama announced the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in late 2011. However, military experts unanimously agree that this is not a tenable situation: Iraq, which is already under the joint influence of Tehran and Damascus, will slip into a de facto alliance with Iran, Syria and Lebanon, which oppose both imperialist exploitation of the Middle East and the colonization of Palestine.

Therefore, according to the New York Times, the Pentagon is drawing up a plan for the redeployment of its forces in the region. The troops stationed in Iraq would simply be relocated to Kuwait. This small emirate, which has already renounced sovereignty over most of its territory to host 22,000 GI’s, would become the largest U.S. base in the world. In addition, Washington would lean on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which has already evolved into a counter-revolutionary alliance of monarchies from the Middle East and North Africa since its association with Jordan and Morocco. The Pentagon is expected to oversee and arm more particularly the GCC states, including Saudi Arabia, whose army crushed the popular uprisings in Bahrain and Yemen, and Qatar and Jordan, which took part in NATO’s plunder of Libya.

« U.S. Is Planning Buildup in Gulf After Iraq Exit », by Thom Shanker and Steven Lee Myers, The New York Times, 29 october 2011.