Iraq Kirk Hook fighting shock as Pesh America retreat Iraqi forces sees key Kurdish cities with US approval. So the Peshmerga abandoned Kirk Hook and produce mass evacuations of the city as Iraqi forces move in. Hi, my name is Paul Gordon and this is your eye top. The recent actions against the Kurds by Iraqi forces began a month ago right after the Kurds in Iraq voted overwhelmingly to separate from the Iraqi state and form their own independent nation. Now at the time of the vote, the Iraqi Prime Minister said the vote was unconstitutional and much of the type of the rhetoric used by the Iraqi Prime Minister, Hader al-Abadi is very similar to the rhetoric being used by the Spanish government in response to a similar referendum and outcome in the region of Spain called Catalonia. And we've covered that story extensively on iState.tv. So at the time of the referendum, the US remained somewhat ambiguous, but in response to Iraq's latest move to crush the bid for Kurdish independence, the US has essentially chosen to take an even more ambiguous stand, which is to me an effective tacit approval of Iraq's reaction. So the US has offered token neutrality when it responded to the conflict by saying they were engaged with all parties in Iraq to de-escalate tension. And I think that statement is worthy of a digov treatment here. So I'm going to go ahead and digov that statement for you. This is what they really meant to say to you. Well, we realized we made a lot of promises to the Kurds because they were useful allies to us in the war against ISIS, but now that ISIS is mostly contained, the usefulness of the Kurds is now somewhat in doubt. Whereas with Iraq, even though we have to share power with Iran, we have a regime that will most likely offer us favorable deals when it comes to the oil in their country. So yeah, yeah, we don't want to look like backstabbers here, but we don't want to look like an unfaithful allies. So we're just going to pretend to be neutral and hope Iraq finishes off the Kurds pretty quickly. The Prime Minister of Iraq said about the recent military operations against Kirkuk in particular, we call upon all citizens to cooperate with our heroic armed forces, which are committed to our strict directives to protect civilians in the first place and to impose security and order and to protect state installations and state institutions with an emphasis on protecting state installations and institutions. Now, as for the Persian America abandoning their posts, we get a portrait of what the Kurds think of them from from this time article, and I'm quoting from the time article here, armed Kurdish civilians set up checkpoints in Kirkuk Monday morning as they tried to prevent Kurdish President Merga fighters from evacuating the city as I wrecking government forces advanced. The Peshmerga left along with tens of thousands fleet of fleeing citizens that jammed the roads from Kirkuk to Erbil, resident burnt tire, residents burnt tires and shouted shame on you, while some civilians pointed guns as the Peshmerga departed. By mid afternoon, the Kurds had lost control of Kirkuk, Iraq's most contested city. Young Arab men hung an Iraqi flag from a bridge as American made humbys rolled through the streets closely followed by pickup trucks filled with fighters from the mostly Shia popular mobilization forces. Now, all Kirkuk can see this flag said Abdul Agubal as he hung it over the billboard for the patriotic union of Kurdistan, the leading Kurdish political party in Kirkuk. They sold Kirkuk said Ahmed Muhammad holding his Kalishnikov at the edge of the city with a group of angry Kurdish volunteer fighters pledging to go back and push the Iraqi forces out. This is shame on the Kurdish leaders and most of the Kurdish commanders in Kirkuk said why Raleigh they didn't fire one bullet from their weapons. They should defend Kirkuk, but they didn't. The Kurds are finding themselves in a position of being outnumbered with no support from their ally, the United States, which has been supporting them for as long as they were useful in rolling back ISIS. President Donald Trump has made it clear in a statement on Monday that any aid the Kurds could be looking for from the US, what wouldn't would not be coming. The president has vowed that the US would not take sides in this conflict and it's unlikely that the Kurds will be able to offer direct resistance to the Iraqi occupation, but insurgency efforts, insurgency efforts are sure to follow and just how much the US will aid Iraq remains to be seen. But if you were a betting man, I'd put my money on this. The US will help Iraq as little as possible, but as much as they need to to assure Iraq controls those valuable oil fields that lie inside the region claimed by the Iraqi Kurds. And this is Paul Gordon of iState.tv and this has been your I top report to read the full article. Let me point in the red direction, look up in that corner there and you'll get a link to the full article and there's much more stuff that could be said that is in that article. And you can also find the article link in the description in the comments section above. And if you liked this video and this channel, do us all a favor. Well, do me a favor and help us out by subscribing to us and clicking on the bell next to the big red subscription button. And do share this video with your friends and comment. Your comment might just end up in our weekly feature, you comment.