You are here

Iraq & Syria Could Be Permanently Broken Up As Failed States

Next month’s peace talks in Geneva to resolve the Syrian conflict could fail because the U.S. has no coherent policy in putting back together the broken nation’s of Iraq and Syria. Voice of America reports: One major problem, according to current and former intelligence and military officials, is that U.S. policy has simply not adjusted to the complex realities on the ground. “I haven’t seen any indication that the U.S. has a coherent plan for dealing with failed states,” former CIA Director James Woolsey told VOA. “I don’t think the Obama administration has developed one.” Woolsey and others point to a growing list of so-called failed states in the Middle East and elsewhere, where critical institutions have collapsed and the power vacuum is being filled by various groups with different agendas. “There is no Syria or Iraq,” said Kurdistan Regional Government Intelligence Director Lahur Talabani, who argued in an interview with VOA that the emergence of the Islamic State terror group, or IS, delivered the decisive blow to both nations. “With the arrival of ISIS in the region, they removed the borders that were put in place,” he said, using another acronym for IS. Pending collapses Like Talabani, others see the [...]