Posted on 06/23/2014 4:17:56 PM PDT by SkyPilot
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday promised "intense and sustained" U.S. support for Iraq, but said the divided country would only survive if its leaders took urgent steps to bring it together.
Hours before Kerry arrived in Baghdad, Sunni tribes who have joined a militant takeover of northern Iraq seized the only legal crossing point with Jordan, security sources said, leaving troops with no presence along the entire western frontier which includes some of the Middle East's most important trade routes.
U.S. President Barack Obama has offered up to 300 American advisers to Iraq but held off granting Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite Muslim-led government's request for air strikes to counter the two-week advance by Sunni militants.
Officials have meanwhile called for Iraqis to form an inclusive government. The insurgency has been fuelled largely by a sense of marginalisation and persecution among Iraq's Sunnis.
"The support will be intense and sustained and if Iraq's leaders take the necessary steps to bring the country together, it will be effective," Kerry told reporters in Baghdad.
He said Maliki had "on multiple occasions affirmed his commitment to July 1" as the date to start the formation of a new government bringing in more Sunnis and Kurds to share power, a move Washington is keen to see.
Iraqi and Jordanian security sources said tribal leaders were negotiating to hand the Turabil desert border post to Sunni Islamists from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) who took two main crossings with Syria in recent days and have pushed the Shi'ite-led government's forces back toward Baghdad.
Iraq state television said late on Monday that the army had recaptured both the crossing with Jordan and the al-Waleed crossing with Syria. Reuters could not independently confirm reports due to security restrictions.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Ping brother.
His legacy is...."Black" and nothing more.
“The support will be intense and sustained and if Iraq’s leaders take the necessary steps to bring the country together, it will be effective,” Kerry told reporters in Baghdad.
Hmmmm... Sounds much like Ghengis Khan... right, Johnny Boy!
If the ISIS loonies keep up with commands to the populace like “send all your unmarried women to service the soldiers” they may lose popular support in the areas they’ve conquered. See the threads on the ISIS mufti who issued that edict (or face the full weight of Sharia Law).
The War might start this year.
Hey dopey. This isn't the period right after the war when we had to create a coalition government. Iraq had elections to create "power sharing." They obviously didn't work, or didn't work to each group's satisfaction so now they are back to killing each other. Kerry is just babbling meaningless nonsense.
FreepU, John French’n Kerry!!
Arab leaders think they want the caliphate, but I can guarantee each one only wants it if they’ll be the caliph. Can you imagine a Saudi king bowing to somebody else? How about the Ayatollah? And if there is a caliphate, will it be Sunni or Shiite? It makes a difference as they hate each other...and with darned good reasons. What’s going on now is the prescription for ongoing war until the population has been reduced by starvation. But the rest of the world will be flooded with refugees. Those refugees will reignite the same sectarian war from Paris to London to New York and Boise.
Baghdad is the key to reconstituting the Caliphate, which is the goal of the Islamists. That’s another reason why it was important for us to keep troops in Iraq.
So let’s see if I’ve got this right: we arm them in Syria and bomb them in Iraq? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
You forgot Al-Andalus! Spain will not fight.
“Sunni tribes”
aka, 7th century troglodytes-from-hell.
Until they evolve into a civilization, there will be no peace at any price.
`Kerry promises intense, sustained support’
Translated: Under the bus with you, Iraq.
“shelter in place ... intensely”
JF’nK is Bammy’s Muzzie Bro. point man.
Yeah, John, we know. Gonna go through those guys like Jen-Jiss Khan, right? Intense and sustained, like the time General Patton personally sent you into Cambodia? Seared in the memory, John-john. Seared in the memory.
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