MESOP SAMPLER STRATEGIC OUTLOOK KURDISTAN – IRAQ : ZEBARI / CentCom / Barzani & U.S. Lawmaker Mike Huckabee

Hoshiyar Zebari said: “As President Obama said, there is no time limit.”

US military forces today conducted several more air-strikes, from manned fighter jets and drones, to defend Kurdish forces near Erbil, according to the United States Central Command, or CentCom. The strikes are aimed at protecting Kurdish peshmarga forces as they confront IS fighters near the site of a US consulate and a US-Iraqi joint military operations centre, CentCom said.Kurdistan regional president Masoud Barzani has urged Western allies to send arms to help peshmarga forces resist the jihadists. During a visit by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, Barzani said: “We are not fighting a terrorist organisation, we are fighting a terrorist state.” His call has been echoed by some Republican Party voices in the US, such as Mike Huckabee who has called on Obama to “arm the Kurds” and accused the US  Administration of leaving south Kurdistan forces “with their pants down”. “Where is the outrage in this country that we have not kept our promises to those Kurdish people?” said Huckabee. “The government of Maliki and Iraq said he would take the weapons and see that the Kurds got them, but out of his corruption, nothing has been delivered to the Kurds, nothing”.