BREAKING: Iraq Issues Arrest Warrant For President Trump; Here’s What We Know…

According to Baghdad Today, as cited by IraqNews, the head of Iraq’s “Supreme Judicial Council,” a man named Faiq Zaidan, has issued an arrest warrant for former President Trump. The warrant was apparently issued on Thursday, with Iraq News reporting on Friday, January 6th that:

The President of the Supreme Judicial Council, Faiq Zaidan, announced on Thursday the issuance of an arrest warrant for former U.S. President Donald Trump, according to Baghdad Today news agency.

Zaidan mentioned in a statement that the Iraqi judiciary issued an arrest warrant for former U.S. President Donald Trump, who confessed to having committed the crime, calling on those investigating the assassination of the Quds Force commander, Qasem Soleimani, and chief of staff of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Iraq, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, to make an exceptional effort to uncover the perpetrators, Baghdad Today news agency reported.  

“Why has he not yet been held accountable for this heinous crime?” Zaidan asked, referring to Donald Trump.

An article by Charles Kennedy on OilPrice, noting both the symbolic nature of the warrant and the heavy penalty the crime Trump is charged with by the Iraqi warrant carries with it, notes that “The arrest warrant charges Trump with premeditated murder. While the warrant is clearly symbolic, a conviction of this nature carries the death penalty.”

The same article goes on to describe why Iraq, generally thought to be a US ally and partner in the Middle East and a country that Trump freed from the scourge of ISIS with a devastating bombing campaign paired with a Kurdish and Iraqi ground offensive, would issue an arrest warrant for a former US president, saying:

Iraq, the second-largest oil producer in OPEC, is caught between rivals Iran and the United States, while Iran’s influence has grown exponentially since the toppling of Saddam Hussein following the 2003 U.S. invasion.

In October, ending a long-running stalemate, Iraq’s parliament named a new pro-Iranian prime minister and pro-Iranian parties now dominate, having sidelined Shi’ite rival Moqtada al Sadr, who had been paralyzing the government with anti-Iranian protests.

Former President Trump ordered the strike that killed IRGC General Soleimani in the summer of 2020, taking out the notorious backer of terrorism with a drone strike. The Iranians responded with missiles that hit a US base in Iraq.

Many Americans cheered the strike and Trump’s taking the fight to a notorious Iranian terrorist without starting a wider war with Iran, as his predecessors might have done, though international bodies like the UN attacked him for the strike after it took place. The BBC, reporting on that at the time, said:

Soleimani died along with nine other people in a drone strike near Baghdad airport in Iraq in January.

A report by the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Agnes Callamard, says the US had not provided sufficient evidence of an imminent threat to life to justify the attack.

The US state department accused her of “giving a pass to terrorists”.

Last week, Iran issued arrest warrants for US President Donald Trump and 35 others on charges of murder and terrorism in connection with the killing.