The US's longstanding project to push for an independent Kurdistan in the oil-rich regions of northern Iraq and Syria in the downstream of the defeat of the ISIS have run into strong headwinds. This could have been anticipated because the plans essentially devolve upon the balkanization of Syria and Iraq, which will be seriously resisted by the non-Kurdish Arab people.

The Iraqi Vice-President Nouri Maliki did some plain speaking on Friday when he warned the US against any attempt to claw its way back into Iraq as an occupation force on the pretext of fighting the ISIS threat. Maliki said: "We do not want a military base in al-Waleed, the Iraqi society is against foreign bases on the country's territory … I told the US side it was not in its interests to return to Iraq to establish military bases again."