US will not be ‘dragged back’ into conflict in Iraq, Obama warns

As the United States and Iran moved yesterday to defend Iraq from rampaging Sunni Islamist insurgents, President Barack Obama ruled out sending US troops back into combat.

However, he said he was considering “a range of other options”, paving the way for possible military action to stem the advance of the militants who have taken control of several major cities in the country.

Speaking from the White House, Mr Obama said the US would "not allow ourselves to be dragged back" into conflict in Iraq while the country's political leaders failed to resolve sectarian divisions and involve the minority Sunni faction in the country.

He said he would "in the days ahead" review military options to support the security forces of Iraq's Shia-led government against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the Sunni extremists spawned from an al-Qaeda group that have seized Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul.

The president said he would “consult closely with Congress” on “appropriate action” in Iraq.

Revolutionary guards

Iran, meanwhile, moved to defend its own interests in its western neighbour, sending Maj Gen Qassem Suleimani, an eminence grise of the Iranian revolutionary guards, to Baghdad to meet militia leaders and tribal chiefs in control of Baghdad’s vulnerable western approaches.

The scramble by two staunch adversaries to shore up the embattled Iraqi authorities underscored how seriously they take the situation in a country in danger of fragmentation as a result of this week’s sudden advance by Sunni fighters. The jihadi grouping, comprising no more than 7,000 men, has upended regional calculus this week, seizing key Iraqi cities and towns in the north, sending the army fleeing as they sweep south to within 50 miles of the capital. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are on the move, seeking safe haven.

Iraq’s most senior Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, threatened to plunge the country deeper into sectarian conflict by calling on all able-bodied Iraqi Shias to take up arms against Sunni extremists. Congressional approval from the time of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 remains in place, giving Mr Obama flexibility to strike. – (Additional reporting Guardian service)