Mediaboss Marketing

Theresa May tonight vowed there will be no more failed Iraq-style foreign invasions by British forces in the biggest foreign policy shake-up in 20 years.

In her first US speech as Prime Minister, Mrs May called time on two decades of so-called 'liberal intervention' by Britain in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Kosovo.

It is in our interests to stand strong together to defend our values, the PM said.

This cannot mean a return to the failed policies of the past. The days of Britain and America intervening in sovereign countries in an attempt to remake the world in our own image are over.

Her comments signal an end to two decades of intervention by Britain in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Kosovo and Sierra Leone.

However the PM also warned President Trump not to stand idly by in the face of real threats to national security.

And she urged him to help defend eastern Europe from the growing threat from Vladimir Putin.

The new President has described NATO as obsolete and questioned whether he would bother to defend eastern European states if Russia attacked.

But Mrs May invoked Trump's hero, former President Ronald Reagan, as she begged him to stand up for eastern Europe.

When it comes to Russia, as so often it is wise to turn to the example of President Reagan who - during negotiations with his opposite number Mikhail Gorbachev - used to abide by the adage trust but verify. With President Putin, my advice is to 'engage but beware', she said.

We should not jeopardise the freedoms that President Reagan and Mrs Thatcher brought to

She had earlier claimed "opposites attract" when asked about her relationship with Donald Trump in a remark that risks enraging millions of women around the world who marched in protest last Saturday following the inauguration.

Mrs May will become the first world leader to meet the new President since his inauguration when the pair sit down for talks in the White House.

She is desperate to strike up a close relationship despite repeated warnings from Tory MPs not to get too close to the much-criticised President.

President Trump sounded somewhat less excited by the summit than the PM as he moaned about having to lead talks on a UK/US trade deal himself.

His choice for commerce secretary Wilbur Ross has not yet been approved by Congress.

"I'm meeting the Prime Minister tomorrow, he told a Republican Party conference in Philadelphia.

I don't have my Commerce Secretary yet, and they want to talk trade. So I'll have to handle it myself... Which is ok."

But Mrs May risks enraging millions of women around the world who marched in protest last Saturday following President Trump's inauguration.

The new President has previously boasted about sexually assaulting women and now wants to clamp down on abortion rights.

Mrs May did condemn his boasts as unacceptable earlier this month - but as she prepares for their first meeting tomorrow she was keen to stress areas of common ground.

I think we both share a desire to ensure that governments are working for everyone - and particularly that governments are working for ordinary working families and working class families, the PM said.

I think that's important. I think we share that interest and that intention in both our countries.

In a speech to leading Republican politicians in Philadelphia tonight Mrs May will go further and shower praise on Mr Trump and his plans for office.

She will credit him with helping America to rediscover its confidence and to renew the nation.

And she will vow that under their leadership Britain and America can lead together again.

Speaking ahead of the speech she said her first White House summit will be crucial in cementing that special relationship.

Video Unavailable

Click to play Tap to play

Play now

Video will play in

Whats going to be important is having the opportunity to actually sit down with President Trump and talk to him face to face, about the interests we share, about the special relationship, about the joint challenges we both face, she said.

I believe what will come out of this is a very clear determination on both sides not just to maintain the special relationship, but also to build it for the future.

There is a real role for the UK and the US working together.

See the rest here:
Theresa May vows no more 'failed' Iraq-style invasions while speaking in US amid radical foreign policy shake-up - Mirror.co.uk

Germany Extends Military Training Mission in Northern Iraq Benson County Farmers Press Germany's Parliament has extended the country's training mission in northern Iraq for another year. Some 150 soldiers with the Bundeswehr have been training Kurdish "Peshmerga" militias already for two years to help in the fight against Islamic State ... and more »

Read the original here:
Germany Extends Military Training Mission in Northern Iraq - Benson County Farmers Press

Militants forced him to flee Iraq as a teenager, but now the Marine Corps has allowed him to return as an avenging angel.

America is my home, but Iraq is my homeland, Cpl. Ali J. Mohammed said in a Marine Corps news story. My biggest motivation right now is to help drive these extremist groups out of my homeland, and being able to do that as a United States Marine is the most rewarding thing I could have asked for.

Mohammed, 23, is serving as a translator with a team of U.S. troops that is helping Iraqi security forces expel the Islamic State terror group from Iraqi soil, the story says. He grew up in Baghdad and speaks a unique dialect of Arabic.

Marine Col. Paul Nugent, commander of Task Force Al Asad, and Army Lt. Gen Stephen Townsend, commander of all U.S. troops in Iraq, watch a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System strike a building housing ISIS near Haditha, Iraq, on Sept. 7. Photo Credit: Marine Corps photo by Capt. Ryan E. Alvis. He left Iraq when he was 16 after his family received threats for supporting U.S. forces. His sister had worked as a translator for Marines in Iraq.

Seeing her work so closely with these Americans, how much she trusted them and seeing how much they wanted to help us made me idealize them as a child, Mohammed said in the story. It is part of the reason I decided to join the Marine Corps.

Ali is currently assigned to Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Crisis Response-Central Command. He ultimately hopes to become a Raider with Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command.

To be able to read, write and speak Arabic is normal to him, and for him to be a U.S. Marine and understand how we operate is just phenomenal, Maj. Ryan Hunt, who leads a team of U.S. advisers in Northern Iraq, said in the news story. Hes just a pleasure to work with and is a huge asset to this team. Hes had such a positive attitude and is very mature; sometimes I forget hes only 23 years old.

Continue reading here:
Meet ISIS' worst nightmare: A Marine who grew up in Iraq - Marine Corps Times

No one knows how seriously to take President Donald Trump's threat to seize Iraq's oil.

Doing so would involve extraordinary costs and risk confrontation with America's best ground partner against Isis, but the President told the CIA this weekend: Maybe you'll have another chance.

The recycled campaign comment is raising concerns about Mr Trump's understanding of the delicate Middle East politics involved in the US-led effort against extremist groups. He has said he was opposed to the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. But on the campaign trail and again on Saturday, the day after his inauguration, he suggested the costly and deadly occupation of the country might have been offset somewhat if the United States had taken the country's rich petroleum reserves.

To the victor belong the spoils, Mr Trump told members of the intelligence community, saying he first argued this case for economic reasons. He said it made sense as a counterterrorism approach to defeating Isis because that's where they made their money in the first place.

So we should have kept the oil, he said. But, OK, maybe you'll have another chance.

The statement ignores the precedent of hundreds of years of American history and presidents who have tended to pour money and aid back into countries the United States has fought in major wars.

The US still has troops in Germany and Japan, with the permission of those nations, but did not take possession of their natural resources. And taking Iraq's reserves, the world's fifth largest, would require an immense investment of resources and manpower in a country that the United States couldn't quell after spending more than $2 trillion and deploying at one point more than 170,000 troops.

US enemies and friends would oppose the move. While Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has accepted US help to retake Isis-held territory in his country, he has repeatedly asserted Iraqi sovereignty. He said of Trump's oil vow in November, I am going to judge him by what he does later.

Reutersreported Mr al-Abadi as saying: It wasn't clear what he meant. Did he mean in 2003 or to prevent the terrorists from seizing Iraq's oil? Iraq's oil is constitutionally the property of the Iraqis.

Asked about the matter Monday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer stressed Mr Trump's economic argument.

We want to be sure our interests are protected, he told reporters. We're going into a country for a cause. He wants to be sure America is getting something out of it for the commitment and sacrifice it is making.

There is uncertainty as to where Mr Trump's idea derives from, though the President has noted that taking the oil is something I have long said.

Hints of this notion existed in some of the pre-2003 rhetoric from the Bush administration about the Iraq war paying for itself. But top advisers to President George W Bush have stressed how the future of Iraq's resources were pointedly left out of decision-making related to the invasion so as not to fuel a perception that the war was driven by oil concerns.

Mr Bush almost bent over backwards not to make a special effort to gain access for us to the oil resources, John Negroponte, who was Bush's director of national intelligence, told CNN.

Regarding Mr Trump, former CIA Director and Defence Secretary Robert Gates told NBC: I have no clue what he's talking about.

Taking the oil would require a permanent U.S. occupation, or at least until Iraq's 140 billion barrels of crude run out, and a large presence of American soldiers to guard sometimes isolated oil fields and infrastructure. Such a mission would be highly unpopular with Iraqis, whose hearts and minds the U.S. is still try to win to defeat groups such as IS and al-Qaida.

This is totally wrong, said Zaher Aziz, a 42-year-old owner of a market stand in Irbil. They came here by themselves and occupied Iraq. And now they want the Iraqis to pay for that?

However unrealistic Mr Trump's suggestion, intelligence officials believe more has to be done to cut off Isis' oil revenues. The group seized significant oil when it stormed across Syria's border in 2014 and seized the city of Mosul and large swaths of Iraqi territory.

The US Treasury Department estimated that Isis raked in $500 million from oil and gas sales in 2015. That figure is likely lower now as a result of US-led operations, but officials say oil continues to fund the group's recruitment and far-flung terrorist activities.

In terms of oil helping establish Isis, of course that's oversimplification, said Hassan Hassan, co-author of the book ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, using an alternate acronym from the militants. He said oil was a small part of the group's origins and early years, when it morphed from an al-Qaeda branch to an organisation claiming a worldwide caliphate.

AP/Reuters

Continued here:
Iraq says Donald Trump's threat to seize the country's oil makes no sense - The Independent

In a speech to CIA officials on Saturday, Trump suggested the United States should have taken Iraq's oil in reimbursement for the 2003 invasion.

Iraq's oil is the property of Iraqis, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday, in reaction to U.S. President Donald Trump who argued that the United States should have taken possession of the nation's crude reserves.

In a speech to CIA officials on Saturday, Trump suggested the United States should have taken Iraq's oil in reimbursement for the 2003 invasion that put an end to Saddam Hussein's rule.

Trump also suggested that taking Iraq's oil would have prevented Islamic State from rising up, by removing a source of the group's funding, according to a Huffington Post report of the encounter. While campaigning for president, Trump had said repeatedly he would "Bomb the shit out of ISIS" ... get Exxon in there and take the oil."

"It wasn't clear what he meant," Abadi told a news conference when asked about Trump's comments. "Did he mean in 2003 or to prevent the terrorists from seizing Iraq's oil?"

"Iraq's oil is constitutionally the property of the Iraqis," he said.

The new U.S. president has also sent messages offering to increase the level of assistance to Iraq, Abadi said, without giving details on the nature of the assistance.

"I've got assurances from President Trump that the assistance to Iraqi will continue and that it will also increase," Abadi told a news conference in Baghdad.

Trump has made the fight against Islamic State, the hardline group that declared a self-styled "caliphate" over parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014, a priority for his administration.

A U.S.-led coalition is already providing critical support to an offensive by Iraqi forces to take backMosul, the largest city under control of Islamic State. The United States is also providing financial support to Iraq.

Want to enjoy 'Zen' reading - with no ads and just the article? Subscribe today

Excerpt from:
Iraqi PM Vowes Trump Will Not Take Iraq's Oil as He Promised - Haaretz