{"id":16850,"date":"2013-03-25T10:14:58","date_gmt":"2013-03-25T17:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=16850"},"modified":"2013-03-25T10:14:58","modified_gmt":"2013-03-25T17:14:58","slug":"us-secretary-kerry-with-typical-us-hubris-tells-iraq-to-stand-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=16850","title":{"rendered":"US Secretary Kerry, with typical US Hubris, tells Iraq to Stand-down"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kerry: Iraq helping Syria\u2019s Assad by allowing arms flow<\/strong>
\nBy Anne Gearan – 24 March, 2013 – Washington Post<\/p>\n

BAGHDAD \u2014 Iraq is helping to shore up the besieged regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by allowing Iranian arms and fighters to cross into Syria from Iraq, Secretary of State John F. Kerry charged Sunday.<\/p>\n

During an unannounced trip to Baghdad, Kerry lobbied Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for greater scrutiny of flights that cross Iraq. He appeared to make little headway with Maliki, a Shiite with long-standing ties to Iran and little inclination to do U.S. bidding 10 years after the American invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.<\/p>\n

Maliki is a prickly leader whose relations with U.S. officials have grown more strained since the departure of American forces and the re-emergence of widespread sectarian violence in Iraq. Maliki\u2019s consolidation of power worries his U.S. backers. His dealings with Shiite Iran worry them more.<\/p>\n

\u201cIraq\u2019s success will take enormous cooperation,\u201d Kerry said. \u201cIt\u2019ll take dialogue, and it\u2019ll take courage. It\u2019ll require the resolve to defend the sovereignty of the country and its airspace. .\u2009.\u2009.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all want to see Iraq succeed. There\u2019s such an enormous investment of our treasure, our people and our money in this initiative.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Obama administration has been unable to persuade Iraq to block overflights from Iran or even to perform regular inspections.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a very spirited discussion,\u201d Kerry said after the meeting with Maliki, \u201cand I made it very clear to the prime minister that the overflights from Iran are, in fact, helping to sustain President Assad and his regime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kerry began the session with Maliki by joking that he had been assured that the Iraqi leader would \u201cdo everything that I say.\u201d Maliki had a good-natured reply: \u201cWe won\u2019t do it,\u201d he said through an interpreter. Both men smiled.<\/p>\n

Iraq says Iranian flights over its territory carry only humanitarian supplies for the civil war in next-door Syria, and the only two known inspections of Iranian aircraft found just those supplies.<\/p>\n

The United States says the sheer volume of flights and overland vehicle traffic to Syria through Iraq points to regular arms shipments. A senior U.S. official traveling with Kerry said there are flights nearly every day. The official would not say how the United States is certain that the planes are carrying weapons for Assad, an Iranian ally, but repeatedly asserted that is the case. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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Kerry: Iraq helping Syria\u2019s Assad by allowing arms flow By Anne Gearan – 24 March, 2013 – Washington Post BAGHDAD \u2014 Iraq is helping to shore up the besieged regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by allowing Iranian arms and fighters to cross into Syria from Iraq, Secretary of State John F. Kerry charged Sunday. more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[3470],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16850"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16850"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16851,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16850\/revisions\/16851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}