Kerry in Iraq to back govt, build support against IS
US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Baghdad yesterday as he began a tour of the Middle East to build military, political and financial support to defeat Islamic State militants controlling parts of Iraq and Syria.
Kerry on Monday had hailed the formation of a new, more inclusive, Iraqi government under Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi as a ‘ major milestone’, and Washington had said it was vital before there could be further US action to help push back the militants, who took over large parts of northern Iraq this year.
Kerry flew to Baghdad from Jordan, first stop on the tour that will include Saudi Arabia and probably other Arab capitals.
Last week nine countries, most of them in Europe, were named as the core group of a coalition President Barack Obama says will degrade and destroy Islamic State, which has declared a caliphate in the land it took over and executed many prisoners, including two American journalists who were beheaded.
In Washington, Obama will give a speech on Wednesday in which he will detail his plan to confront the militants, which could take several years.
Two days after Iraq formed a new government, Kerry arrived in Baghdad to ‘ take it to the next level’, as a senior US official put it, and find a way to defeat Islamic State.
Kerry will meet Abadi, whose government faces multiple crises from the need to pull Sunni Muslims back from armed revolt to persuading minority Kurds not to break away and convincing
We’re now at the stage of beginning to build a broadbased coalition. Senior US State Department official
Abadi’s own majority Shi’ites he can protect them from Sunni hardliners.
His visit comes hours before a speech in which Obama will try to rally Americans behind another war in a region he has long sought to leave, backed by what Washington hopes will be a coalition of Nato and Gulf Arab allies committed to a campaign that could stretch beyond the end of Obama’s term in 2016.
“We’re now at the stage of beginning to build a broad-based coalition,” a senior US State Department official said.
“There is, of course, military support, and that’s everything from logistics and intelligence and airlifts and all the things it takes to conduct an effective military campaign.”
Unlike his predecessor, Abadi enjoys the support of nearly all of Iraq’s major political groups, and the two most inf luential outside powers, Iran and the United States.
US officials hope he will present a unified front to weaken Islamic State, which has seized a third of both Iraq and Syria, and declared a caliphate.
While it is unclear what steps will be taken to strengthen the Iraqi army after its collapse in the face of an Islamic State onslaught in June, the senior US official said tentative plans for a new National Guard unit, announced by Abadi on Monday, were intended to deprive Islamic State of safe havens by handing over security to the provinces. — Reuters