Middle East problems so complex

The terrorist threat has shadowed the tenure of director of national intelligence James Clapper, The Washington Post's David Ignatius said.

Clapper was quoted by Ignatius as admitting in a September 2014 interview that the United States had "underestimated" the Islamic State (Daesh).

He isn’t making that mistake now.

He says the United States is slowly "degrading" the extremists but probably won’t capture Daesh’s key Iraqi stronghold this year and faces a long-term struggle that will last for "decades".

"They’ve lost a lot of territory," Clapper told Ignatius.

"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."

Even after the extremists are defeated in Iraq and Syria, the problem will persist. We’ll be in a perpetual state of suppression for a long time," he warned.

"I don’t have an answer," Clapper said frankly. 

"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."

Ignatius said at another point "Somehow the expectation is that we can find the silver needle, and we’ll create ‘the city on a hill.’"

"That’s not realistic, he cautioned, because the problem is so complex," he said. 

Source : MENA