MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to him, the existence of Daesh serves the long-term interests of Washington to destabilize countries “unfriendly” to the United States.
“Strategically, ISIS [Daesh] serves the long-term interest of the US. As long as ISIS continues to destabilize and weaken the states that are deemed ‘unfriendly’ to the US then the latter will continue to covertly sustain ISIS and allow it to subsist… Thus, in the foreseeable future I don’t believe that we will witness a substantial change in the US policies towards ISIS.”
US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has pledged that his administration would “aggressively pursue joint and coalition military operations to crush and destroy Daesh international cooperation to cut off their funding.” He also suggested an international conference, working with Middle Eastern allies such as Israel, Jordan and Egypt, with the common goal to stop the Daesh.
Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, has similarly said that she would work with international allies to defeat the Daesh and the ideologies that fuel it. In her speech at Stanford University, Clinton promised, if elected president, to expand US airstrikes against Daesh and to support Iraqi and other ground forces in campaigns to recapture the cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, the two capitals of Daesh's proclaimed caliphate. Clinton has also pledged to work closely with European and Middle Eastern allies to target jihadists and Daesh affiliates from Libya and Afghanistan.
