Real wimps go to Tehran via Baghdad

By Pepe Escobar

The new Holy Trinity mythology peddled by Washington to an unsuspecting world is that the Libya war is over, the Iraq war will be over by New Year's Eve, and the Afghan war will be over by 2014.

Oh yes; and Lindsay Lohan is a reincarnation of the Virgin Mary.

Let's focus on Iraq. There is one real reason for the United States troop withdrawal in December; the Nuri al-Maliki government in Baghdad bluntly denied blanket immunity from prosecution of war crimes to US soldiers. This implies, crucially, the Maliki government evicting the Pentagon from very convenient military bases in Iraq out of which a strike on Iran could be conducted.

It's essential to remember that this Shi'ite-majority Iraqi government - which inherited a totally devastated country - was arrived at via US-approved democratic elections. Now that entails two poetic justice developments; a democratic Iraq getting closer to the Islamic Republic of Iran; and democracy expelling the militarized face of empire.

in full: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MJ27Ak02.html