A wider war in the Middle East is "a long way away," a US Defense Department official said on Tuesday, adding that improving Baghdad-Damascus ties signaled a trend toward radicalization
"I think we are a long way away from the kind of cataclysm that you are asking about, precisely because I think a lot of mature folks out there understand why it is necessary to avoid that," said Peter Rodman, assistant for international security affairs, during a US State Department press briefing on Tuesday.
The official Kuwaiti news agency, KUNA, said that Rodman, who assumed his post in mid-July, was asked about security cooperation between Syria and Iraq, and the alignment of Arab states in the event of a Middle East war.
Referring to Iraq and Syria, Rodman was quoted as saying, "There is a rivalry that goes back many decades, yet in the present environment they seem to have common ground in trying to complicate life for the United States and Israel. So there is a trend toward radicalization."
Rodman said he was confident that "wiser and cooler heads" in the Middle East would "not let things slide further down the road to that kind of a conflict," according to the agency – Albawaba.com
