(MENAFN- Arab Times) Iraq and Syria may have been permanently torn asunder by war and sectarian tensions, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency said Thursday in a frank assessment that is at odds with Obama administration policy. "I'm having a tough time seeing it come back together," Lt Gen Vincent Stewart told an industry conference, speaking of Iraq and Syria, both of which have seen large chunks territory seized by the Islamic State.
On Iraq, Stewart said he is "wrestling with the idea that the Kurds will come back to a central government of Iraq," suggesting he believed it was unlikely. On Syria, he added: "I can see a time in the future where Syria is fractured into two or three parts." That is not the US goal, he said, but it's looking increasingly likely. CIA Director John Brennan, speaking on the same panel at an industry conference, noted that the countries' borders remain in place, but the governments have lost control of them.
A self-declared caliphate by the Islamic State straddles the border between both countries. Iraqis and Syrians now more often identify themselves by tribe or religious sect, rather than by their nationality, he said. "I think the Middle East is going to be seeing change over the coming decade or two that is going to make it look unlike it did," Brennan said. Iraq and Syria were artificial creations of British and French diplomats when the Ottoman Empire disintegrated on the eve of World War I. Each contains communities of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. Iraq is run by a Shiite-dominated government with ties to Iran, while the Bashar Assad government in Syria is dominated by Alawites, also a Shiite sect.
They are each fighting Islamic State, a fundamentalist Sunni group. The Obama administration's official policy is that Iraq and Syria remain internationally recognized nation states. Administration officials, for example, have resisted calls to send arms directly to the Kurds, who have carved out a measure of autonomy in northern Iraq and have been America's most loyal ally in the region. The administration has insisted that arms for the Kurds be routed through the government in Baghdad.
Kurdish forces backed by air strikes from a US-led coalition drove Islamic State militants out of nine villages in northern Iraq on Friday, Kurdish authorities said. The assault began at dawn on two fronts in the northern province of Kirkuk, and by early afternoon, peshmerga forces had taken an area of over 150 square km (60 square miles), the security council of the autonomous Kurdistan region said in a statement.
At least 40 insurgents were killed in the offensive in the Daquq area, some 175 km (110 miles) north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, the security council said. Of around 1,500 peshmerga who took part, four lost their lives, according to Kurdish fighters who took part in the battle. Most of the front line between peshmerga and Islamic State has not moved in months.
The Kurds already control much of the territory they claim as their own, and have little incentive to push further into predominantly Arab towns and villages, except where they pose a direct threat to their region. Eighteen Turkish construction workers who were kidnapped in Baghdad last week appeared in a video on Friday, apparently being held by a group that threatened to attack Turkish interests in Iraq unless Ankara met its demands.
The three-minute clip circulated online showed five masked gunmen wearing black under a familiar Shi'ite slogan and the title "death squad", but it was not immediately clear to which group they belonged. The authenticity of the video could not be verified and officials in Iraq were not immediately available to comment.
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