Everything in the human sphere is 'politicized', but that doesn't mean politics is the only game in town, i.e. that all science is politicized and thus the retraction should be assumed to be political.
Gaming the process this blatantly is ground for immediate retraction in any sane journal. Politics do not matter at this point. This sort of things happens regularly for many papers, not only papers some people happen to find convenient in their misguided arguments.