Obama warns of a ‘ long- term’ Iraq project
‘ Will not let them create some caliphate through Syria and Iraq,’ US President tells NYT in an interview
Washington, Aug. 9: US President Barack Obama warned Saturday that the US offensive in Iraq was a “long- term project” to rout out militants and deliver aid to beleaguered civilians.
Recognising there was no US military solution to reverse Islamic State fighters’ advances in Iraq, Mr Obama called on Iraqi officials to urgently form a unity government.
While US air strikes have destroyed the militants’ arms and equipment within striking distance of the autonomous region of Kurdistan, Mr Obama said the operations that began this week could last “months.”
He spoke as Iraqi forces prepared a US- backed counter- offensive.
“We feel confident we can prevent ISIL from going up the mountain and slaugh- tering the people who are there,” Mr Obama said, using the militant group’s former name of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
“But the next step, which is going to be complicated logistically, is how do we give safe passage for people down from the mountain and where can we ultimately relocate them so that they are safe,” he said.
In a significant boost to efforts to help the civilians stranded on Mount Sinjar, Mr Obama said British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande have agreed to lend their support following telephone talks.
But the President repeated assurances that no US combat troops would be deployed to Iraq in the first American offensive since Washington pulled out its forces in 2011 after nearly a decade of a brutal war that proved costly in both blood and treasure.
Washington, Aug. 9: US President Barack Obama said he was willing to consider broader use of military strikes in Iraq to beat back Islamist militants, but Iraqi political leaders must first figure out a way to work with each other, the New York Times reported.
In a wide- ranging interview conducted on Friday, Mr Obama also expressed regrets over not doing more to help Libya, pessimism about prospects for West Asia peace, concerns that Russia could invade Ukraine, and frustration that fellow economic superpower China has not stepped up to help. Mr Obama on Thursday authorised the US military to conduct targeted strikes on fighters of the group formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ( ISIS) in northern Iraq, a limited operation designed to prevent what he called a potential “genocide” of a religious sect and also protect American officials working in the country.
But in the interview with Times columnist Thomas Friedman, Mr Obama said the United States may eventually do more to help Iraq repel the militant group, which seeks to control its own state.
“We’re not going to let them create some caliphate through Syria and Iraq,” Mr Obama said in the interview, excerpts of which the Times posted on its website late on Friday. “But we can only do that if we know that we have got partners on the ground who are capable of filling the void,” he said.
He praised officials from Iraq’s semi- autonomous Kurdish region for being “functional” and “tolerant of other sects and religions” and said the United States wanted to help.
“But, more broadly, what I’ve indicated is that I don’t want to be in the business of being the Iraqi Air Force,” he said. Mr Obama has faced growing criticism for being too reluctant to intervene in thorny foreign policy issues which have piled up under his watch.
He quipped that he sometimes wished the United States was more like China: a superpower that no one expects to intervene. “They are free riders, and they’ve been free riders for the last 30 years, and it’s worked really well for them,” Mr Obama said.
The US on Saturday launched new airstrikes to aid thousands of members of an Iraqi minority group who fled from Islamic extremists, as Iraq's foreign minister said US airstrikes have helped Kurdish forces counter the militants' advance.
An American military team is currently in the Kurdish regional capital Irbil, working to ensure tactical coordination with Kurdish peshmerga forces, Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari told a press conference.
— Reuters, AP