Kerry comments in Rome - note theme of stabilizing countries to work against ISIS metasasizing

[karynnj]

Last edited Tue Feb 2, 2016, 01:32 PM - Edit history (1)

After listing coalition gains against ISIS - even as they have attacked in Paris and CA - on both Syria and Libya he speaks of need to help get functioning governments.

He told his audience that it was essential that Libya's new unity government maintains an edge over terrorists, especially given the country's resources.

"The last thing in the world you want is a false caliphate with access to billions of dollars of oil revenue," Kerry said.

He stressed the need to push "full speed ahead" in training security personnel and creating a "safe environment" for a government to stand up and operate.

"This is, I think, a major obligation for those countries — us among them — who were there at the very beginning when we felt compelled to protect the people... being slaughtered by the dictator of the country," Kerry said.

At a later news conference, the secretary of state also called for efforts to reach a ceasefire in Syria in order to end human suffering — such as the starvation deaths in Madaya — and to weaken ISIS.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/isis-rebuffed-iraq-syria-now-threatens-libya-kerry-n509726

Edited to add a link to the full speech on State.gov - so I can quote those ideas more completely.

Daesh is, in the sense of metastasizing – and I’m not going to call it like a cancer; it’s more like a weed, where you can cut off the top of the weed or you can pull part of it out but if you leave the tentacles there it can continue to grow. And we’ve got to come at it in a way over this next year that gets right underneath the ground and at the weed itself.

So we need to build more progress and we believe we have a plan in place to be able to do that, choking every resource, choking every method of spreading its terror, and we’re going to continue, I guarantee you, not just to do what we’re doing today, but President Obama has made it clear we’re going to do more even, and we have been going through a series of meetings to define what that will be and over time we will lay that out.

Now, today we need to make clear to everybody that we also need to expand our financial contributions to the funding facility for Iraqi stabilization. It’s one thing to clean Ramadi but you’ve got to come in underneath it and make things work. Services have to be delivered. Police have to work. Schools have to open. There has to be stabilization and we need to build that so people can rebuild their lives and believe there was a reason to go through this fight.

We have seen what these investments mean in Tikrit, for instance. Thanks to more than $50 million committed to the stabilization by members of this coalition over 90 percent of Tikrit’s people are now returned to the city. The main university reopened its doors. The community has overcome Daesh’s tyranny through its own determination and perseverance. It’s a great story. It really is. When you think about where we were six months ago in Tikrit and where we are today, it’s a great story. Tikrit may serve as a model for other newly liberated communities such as Ramadi, Sinjar, Kobani. As we all know, Assistant Secretary and Special Envoy Brett McGurk just went in with a couple of his colleagues – France and Britain – went into Kobani the other day and he can personally tell you what he saw of what is happening.

Beyond our financial support, we have another challenge. We have to help the Government of Iraq remove the thousands of lethal explosives that are left behind by the terrorists. What happens is when Daesh leaves almost every house they put a booby trap hoping that when the family comes back or somebody opens a door or walks in they’re blown up. So war continues in that sense. We, many of the countries around this table, have particular expertise in ordnance removal and we need to do this.

It also means we need to back the broad-based diplomatic effort to de-escalate the conflict and achieve a political transition in Syria. We’ve done a lot of work – everybody at this table. A lot of you are on the telephone. A lot of us have been talking together. They are – the talks officially begin now in Geneva. I’ll come back to that in a minute. But we have an opportunity here that we didn’t have a few months ago and my profound gratitude to every country that came to Vienna twice and to New York under tough circumstances. Everybody’s schedules were pressed but we got to the talks and that was the objective.

In Libya, we’re on the brink of getting a government of national unity and that will prevent Daesh from turning Libya into a stranglehold on that country’s future. And as everybody here knows, has – that country has resources. The last thing in the world you want is a false caliphate with access to billions of dollars of oil revenue. So it means we need to push full speed ahead with training security personnel and we need to ensure that there is a decisive military edge not just to clear territory but to create a safe environment for a government to begin to stand up and operate. And this is, I think, a major obligation for those countries – us among them – who were there at the very beginning when we felt compelled to protect the people from 10,000 or more people being slaughtered by the dictator of the country.

Finally, our coalition has a profound responsibility to answer the urgent, the compelling, the stunning – to address the absolutely stunning images and reality of life for real people on the ground in Syria. This is required by international law, my friends, and it is required by simple human decency. The situation on the ground for the Syrian people is unfathomable. We haven’t seen a catastrophe like this since World War II and it’s unfolding before our eyes. People in Madaya eating leaves and grass or animals of one kind or another that they manage to capture. People who have not had a resupply for months. A hundred and thirteen requests by the United Nations to provide supplies and only 13 have been granted by the Assad regime. Starvation as a tactic of war is against the laws of war and it is being used every single day as a tactic by the Assad regime. So we need to speak out powerfully about the urgent need of Geneva to deliver a ceasefire, to deliver humanitarian assistance, and to get civilians from stopping being bombed on a daily basis by those with airplanes who are dropping bombs.

http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2016/02/251992.htm

[karynnj]

1. More details on what they are committing to in a press conference with the Italian FM

This is the first time I have read much detail on efforts to help restore the areas regained. That they are committing to removing unexplored bombs.

[MBS]

2. Thoughtful, persistent, always connecting the dots

Sec. Kerry is doing such an outstanding job.
I've been so gloomy/worried about, and most of the time appalled by, almost everything about the 2016 election. (It's gotten to the point where I have been deliberately trying to ignore the news. As if that helps anything. . : ( ) .

But then I think of Sec. Kerry, keeping at this, day after day, year after year, with or without public recognition, quietly pushing ahead on things that matter.
Thank you, Sec. Kerry, for keeping me hopeful.

[karynnj]

3. I so agree -

Reading the longer statements, I remembered the hearings that Kerry held on Afghanistan before Obama decided on the surge. This whole effort seem imbued with the insight from that. Even earlier, I remember Kerry speaking of the frustration in 2005 that Abbas was given no help or funds to provide services for people - leading to Gaza siding with Hamas who did that there. (He spoke of how providing services led to Hezbollah being acceptable in Lebanon.

It is hard to be optimistic that the Syrian conference can work - however it is possible that we are nearing a point where all sides are horrified by the damage and may see that the leverage they can get by fighting is not real. Even more a long shot would be that not only do they get a ceasefire in Syria, but the ideas here are actually implemented with the world helping in Iraq, Syria and Libya. Even if this is done in even one place, it might be the rest of the coalition would demand that a future President continue on the path.

If so, there will be MANY unhappy neoliberal and neo con think tank foreign policy people angry with the result -- just as they were with the Iran deal. (This is one area that I fear that not all Democrats will continue the work - but the better things are in 2017, the less likely they might decide they need to return to the decades of failed policies.)

I noticed that a few articles post implementation day were rather childish in references like - Kerry might be the toast of Davos and European diplomacy, but could his "hot" diplomatic streak continue. (Yeah, because major diplomatic triumphs happen every day) However, where the old inside the beltway was that he was not up to people like HRC, now his diplomatic prowess is not questioned.

[karynnj]

5. Please note: this is a thread in the John Kerry group - thus your message is inappropriate

It also is insulting and pretty revealing that you comment without having read anything in the OP. In fact, the stories, the links etc are about the fight against ISIS. While the Syrian civil war is, of course, related - it is not even the topic.

Not to mention, it sounds like you depend excessively on RT for your knowledge of what is happening. The implication that we want "to get control away from Russia" is pretty ironic. It makes Russia responsible for the brutal atrocities of Assad. You might actually want to read the links - if you did you would see that what is happening is a very serious, complicated effort to help bring that region to a better place.

In fact, Obama/Kerry has moved far from the neo con path - on this and on Iran. If you don't believe it go to any of the neo liberal think tanks and read their assessment of foreign policy in Obama's second term. To sum it in a few words "not Happy" works.

[MBS]

6. + 100. Thanks n/t