The Islamic extremists who have seized swathes of Iraq could destabilise the entire region and threaten the United States, President Barack Obama has warned.



The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) could spread conflict to neighbouring states and pose a “medium and long-term threat” to the US, Obama said in an interview aired on Sunday.

"We're going to have to be vigilant generally,” Obama said. “Right now the problem with Isis is the fact that they're destabilising the country. That could spill over into some of our allies like Jordan."

On Sunday, Isis took Iraqi border crossings with Jordan and Syria and, officials said, explosions caused by a suicide bomber and a car bomb at a funeral for a senior army officer in Anbar province killed eight and injuring 13.

Secretary of state John Kerry, in Egypt at the start of a round of meetings with regional leaders to discuss the Iraq crisis, said on Sunday the US wanted Iraqis to find an inclusive leadership to fight back against Isis but would not “pick or choose” a government.

“The United States is not engaged in picking or choosing or advocating for any one individual, or series of individuals, to assume the leadership of Iraq," he said. "That is up to the Iraqi people and we have made that clear since day one."



Asked if US policy had caused the surge in violence, Kerry said: “What is happening in Iraq is not happening because of the United States in terms of the current crisis. The United States shed blood and worked hard for years to provide Iraqis the opportunity to have their own governments."

Kerry is due in Baghdad on Monday.

Isis could amass more arms and resources in the “vacuum” of Syria's civil war, Obama told CBS's Face the Nation.

"But I think it's important for us to recognise that Isis is just one of a number of organisations that we have to stay focused on," he said, highlighting al-Qaida in Yemen and Boko Haram in west Africa, among others.

The president rebutted accusations that US inaction in Syria and Iraq had allowed the crisis to escalate.

"What we can't do is think that we're just going to play whack-a-mole and send US troops occupying various countries wherever these organisations pop up. We're going to have to have a more focused, more targeted strategy and we're going to have to partner and train local law enforcement and military to do their jobs as well."

Last week Obama said he would dispatch 300 special forces troops to help train Iraq's beleaguered army, but said they would not have a combat role.

The increasingly grim news from Iraq, where Isis and its Sunni militant allies have reportedly captured the Turaibil crossing with Jordan and the al-Walid crossing with Syria, fuelled fresh recriminations in Washington on Sunday, with Republicans turning on the White House and each other.

Senator Rand Paul, who has bucked GOP calls for greater intervention, said the US should steer clear of Syria and Iraq.

“It’s now a jihadist wonderland in Iraq precisely because we got over-involved, not because we had too little involvement,” he told CNN. Why should Americans fight in Iraq if the Iraqi army was unwilling to do so, he asked.

Paul, who may seek the party's presidential nomination in 2016, did not rule out helping Shia forces but said the Sunni extremists advancing toward Baghdad posed no immediate threat to the US. “I don’t believe Isis is, in the middle of a fight right now, thinking, ‘Hmm we should send intercontinental missiles to America.’”

Dick Cheney, who helped plan the 2003 invasion of Iraq as George Bush's vice-president, repeated the more mainstream GOP view that the US should intervene.

"Rand Paul, with all due respect, is basically an isolationist," he told ABC. "He doesn't believe we ought to be involved in that part of the world.

I think it's absolutely essential. One of the things I worried about 12 years ago - and that I worry about today - is that there will be another 9/11 attack and that the next time it'll be with weapons far deadlier than airline tickets and box cutters."

Former vice-president Dick Cheney dismissed potential 2016 candidate Rand Paul as an 'isolationist'. Photograph: Olivia Harris/AP Photograph: Olivia Harris/AP

Cheney also assailed Obama for winding down the US presence in the region. "I think he's dead wrong, I think we're in for big trouble in the years ahead because of his refusal to recognise reality and because of his continual emphasis on getting the US to basically withdraw from [that part] of the world.”

Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat chair of the Senate intelligence committee, defended Obama's “thoughtful” handling of the crisis but admitted the intelligence community failed to anticipate the Islamic extremists' breakthroughs.

“You either have to have the technical means up in the sky or in other places, or you have to have assets – people who will give you human intelligence,” she told CNN.

“This is a different culture. It’s very difficult to pierce. The piercing intelligence-wise in terms of humans has been very difficult all along."

Iraq's existence as a state was imperilled, said Feinstein.

“Candidly, I don’t know what the US contingency plan is for a complete takeover of Syria and Iraq," she said. "I do know what we’re on the foot of is a major Sunni-Shiite war.”