US unable to solve issue of terrorism in Middle East: Clapper
Director of US National Intelligence, James Clapper, has admitted that the United States is unable to “fix” the issue of terrorism in the Middle East, but says it is wrong for the US to leave the region.
Speaking to the Washington Post in an interview that was published on Wednesday, Clapper said eliminating terrorists in Iraq and Syria was not going to solve the issue.
“We’ll be in a perpetual state of suppression for a long time,” he said, adding that the US had no solution to the problem either.
“The US can’t fix it. The fundamental issues they have — the large population bulge of disaffected young males, ungoverned spaces, economic challenges and the availability of weapons — won’t go away for a long time,” he continued.
The US and its allies have been carrying out an aerial campaign against alleged terrorist positions inside Syria and Iraq since late 2014.
The spymaster rejected criticism of President Barack Obama for not leaving the Middle East, saying the US needed to stick around in the region for various reasons.
“I don’t think the US can just leave town. Things happen around the world when US leadership is absent. We have to be present — to facilitate, broker and sometimes provide the force,” he argued.
Over the recent years, Washington has sought increasing military presence in the Middle East and has waged wars against countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.
The US has also backed Western military intervention in countries like Syria and Libya, while providing political and military support to Arab monarchies in the Persian Gulf region.
Mosul to remain occupied
Elsewhere in his remarks, Clapper referring to the fight against the Daesh Takfiri group, said the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, which fell to Daesh last year, was not likely to be freed before Obama leaves office.
“They’ve lost a lot of territory,” he told the Post. “We’re killing a lot of their fighters. We will retake Mosul, but it will take a long time and be very messy. I don’t see that happening in this administration.”
The Obama administration has made freeing Mosul a known objective in Obama’s last year of presidency, with Defense Secretary Ashton Carter pledging to "destroy the ISIL cancer's parent tumor” in Iraq and Syria “by collapsing its two power centers in Raqqah and Mosul.”
Clapper, 75, has worked in intelligence for 53 years and has now served almost six years as America’s top intelligence official.
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