US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose "unparalleled" sanctions on Iraq if American forces are forced to leave his territory, hours after the Iraqi parliament asked the government to "end the presence" of foreign forces in the country, while saying in a tweet on his Twitter account: "Iran will never have a nuclear weapon."
The US president also insisted on his threat to target Iranian cultural sites, warning of "great revenge" if Iran retaliated against the killing of the Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani.
"If they really ask us to leave, and if this is not done amicably, then we will impose sanctions on them they have not seen before," Trump said, on Monday, on the Air Force One presidential plane while he was returning to Washington after a two-week vacation in Florida. He pointed out that these sanctions, which he threatened to impose on Iraq, would make those imposed on Iran insignificant compared to them.
"We have an exceptionally expensive air base there. It cost billions of dollars to build it. We will not leave if they do not make up for us. ”
And the parliament of Iraq called the day before yesterday the government to "end the presence of any foreign forces" on its soil, through direct "canceling the request for assistance" submitted to the international community to fight "ISIS".
During an emergency session of the parliament, which was transmitted directly through the official channel of the state, and in the presence of the resigned Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, the parliamentarians approved the "obligation of the Iraqi government to preserve the sovereignty of Iraq by canceling the request for assistance," according to what Parliament Speaker Muhammad al-Halbousi announced.
On the other hand, Trump vowed to Tehran of "great revenge" if it launched an attack on American facilities in the Middle East in response to the killing of the Quds Force commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, General Qassem Soleimani. "If they do anything, there will be great revenge," he said.
He again threatened to hit Iranian cultural sites, asking, "They have the right to kill our citizens and we have no right to harm their cultural sites?" Things are not going like this. ”
Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi said that the House will present and vote this week on a resolution on the powers of war aimed at curbing President Donald Trump's military moves toward Iran.
"This decision is similar to the resolution Senator Tim Kane presented in the Senate," she said in a statement.
"(The resolution) will reaffirm the long-standing oversight responsibilities of Congress, by ordering the administration to halt military combat operations in relation to Iran within 30 days unless the Congress takes further action," she added.
The decision is likely to win approval by the Democrat-led House of Representatives, but the prospects for passage are weaker in the Senate, where it is controlled by Trump's Republican comrades, many of whom have said they support Trump's moves against Iran. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was in charge of the Revolutionary Guards' foreign operations abroad and the architect of Iranian strategy in the Middle East, was killed in a US air strike targeting him at dawn Friday in front of Baghdad International Airport.
Trump and his advisers are defending the US air strike that killed Soleimani and increased tension in the region. Trump says Soleimani was planning attacks against Americans, adding that he was considering publishing intelligence reports that prompted him to order the killing.
Targeting cultural sites with military action is a war crime under international law, which includes a UN Security Council resolution endorsed by the Trump administration in 2017 and the Hague Agreement to protect cultural property in 1954.
This comes at a time when White House advisor Killian Conway said yesterday that Trump is confident that he can negotiate a new nuclear agreement with Iran, a day after Iran announced its intention to further reduce its obligations under the 2015 nuclear deal.
Asked if Trump believed he could still negotiate a new deal, Conway told reporters at the White House: “He said he's open to that. If Iran wants to start behaving like a normal country ... definitely (he will). ”