October 05, 2024
By Nasser Kandil
Iraq’s role in the unity of the battlefronts has been met with the same level of underestimation by many analysts and observers as Yemen’s declaration to open a support front during the early days of the war on Gaza. This underestimation stems either from ideological and political biases that prevented them from recognizing Yemen’s potential, or from the long-standing stereotypical image of Yemen as backward and illiterate, which many have accepted without scrutinising Yemen’s history – a nation that stood alone against colonialism, unlike any other Arab land. Yemen’s contributions to the Arab civilization, dating back to pre-Islamic times, and its renowned wisdom, as encapsulated in the saying “wisdom is Yemeni”, were ignored.
Due to this dismissiveness, many were surprised by the occupying entity’s admission of heavy losses caused by drones launched by Iraqi resistance against the occupying army, specifically targeting the Golani Brigade in the occupied Syrian Golan. The surprise arose not only from the scale of Israeli losses but also from the precision of the strikes. This mirrors the shock that followed Yemen’s successful efforts in challenging American dominance over seas and straits – especially the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait – and imposing a genuine economic blockade on the occupying entity, the effects of which have begun to surface, with the closure of Eilat port standing as a visible symbol.
Many forget that the Iraqi resistance is composed of the elite forces of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), which defeated ISIS in just a few years, after former U.S. President Barack Obama claimed the war against ISIS would last decades. This resistance is the most capable among the Axis of Resistance forces in mobilising fighters for external conflicts, having sent thousands to defend Syria. It possesses some of the most advanced weaponry, on par with the Lebanese resistance, manufactures many of its own arms and ammunition, and enjoys an unimpeded supply line from Iran. Its military expertise was demonstrated in the strike on the American base at Tower 22, located at the Jordanian-Iraqi-Syrian border, which forced the U.S. to negotiate withdrawal from Iraq after two American soldiers were killed.
Some may have overlooked the fact that the Iraqi resistance, reestablished in an organised and coordinated form after its original inception against the American occupation from 2003 to 2011, developed further during the war against ISIS. This development was under the auspices of the religious authority’s fatwa on one hand, and through direct coordination and guidance from Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on the other. The martyrdom of Sayyed Nasrallah and the continued backing of the religious authority serve as powerful catalysts for a qualitative shift in the scale and nature of Iraq’s resistance. What we have witnessed so far is only the beginning.
