John Kerry seeks to bolster new Iraq government with Baghdad visit

Washington: Secretary of state John Kerry arrived in Baghdad for an unannounced visit to show support for a new Iraqi government that the US considers vital to thwarting the advance of Islamist militants.

Kerry’s Wednesday visit comes between the Iraqi parliament’s approval of a new government on 8 September and US President Barack Obama’s televised speech later on Wednesday seeking public and Congressional support to fight the Islamic State, a Sunni militant group that’s taken over large swathes of Syria and northern Iraq and beheaded two American journalists.

The visit gives Kerry the opportunity to press Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi, a Shiite Muslim, for commitments on actions intended to overcome the rift between the former government and disaffected Sunnis and Kurds, which has threatened to split the second-biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries along sectarian lines.

Kerry’s visit may also clear the way for increased US military aid, since Obama had made further assistance contingent on the formation of a representative government acceptable to the US. Obama may address that topic later on Wednesday as he presents his strategy to degrade and ultimately defeat Islamic State, first in Iraq and then in Syria.

Sectarian acts

Kerry last visited the Iraqi capital in June, when the US was pressing behind the scenes for a replacement for Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite politician who alienated both the Sunni and Kurdish minorities. Maliki now is one of the three vice-presidents, a largely ceremonial position, after losing his political fight for a third term.

The government headed by Abadi will try to unite the country as Iraqi forces backed by US air power seek to roll back Islamic State’s advance after the militants seized Mosul, the country’s largest northern city, in June.

The Abadi government has “the potential to unite all of Iraq’s diverse communities for a strong Iraq,” Kerry said before leaving Washington.

Kerry is also due to meet with President Fouad Masoum, parliament speaker Salim al-Jubouri, and foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. His arrival wasn’t announced in advance for security reasons.

International coalition

Easing sectarian tensions in Iraq is important as Obama tries to build an international coalition that includes the region’s Sunni powers. Sunni states have been wary of Shiite Iran’s influence in Baghdad as well as angered by sectarian abuses under Maliki.

Kerry will make the case for Sunni support later this week to Jordan’s King Abdullah in Amman and then to Saudi and other regional leaders in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Kerry will seek their help through actions such as economic aid to Iraq, discrediting religious assertions of Islamic State leaders, blocking financing for extremists, and perhaps joining in military actions, according to a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity because Kerry hadn’t held his talks yet.

Abadi has indicated he will move quickly to show the government’s new direction, the US official said.

The new cabinet has approved a national programme that includes sharing power through federalism and devolving security authority through the development of locally recruited National Guard units in Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish areas, the official said. Those units would be trained by Iraqi forces or others and paid by the central government, the US official said

This amounts to a strategic shift in how Iraq deals with its security problems, the US official said. It is modelled on the Sunni Awakening, when the US recruited Sunni tribes to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq—an earlier phase of the group now calling itself Islamic State—during the US occupation of Iraq. Bloomberg