Obama: US firepower not a solution to Iraq crisis

US President Barack Obama warned Friday that no amount of US firepower could keep Iraq together if its political leaders did not disdain sectarianism and work to unite the country.

Obama told CNN, a day after announcing the dispatch of 300 special forces advisors to Iraq following a lightning advance by Sunni militants, that American sacrifices had given Iraq a chance at a stable democracy, but it had been squandered.

"There's no amount of American firepower that's going to be able to hold the country together," Obama said in an interview.

"I made that very clear to (Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-)Maliki and all of the other leadership inside of Iraq."

"We gave Iraq the chance to have an inclusive democracy. To work across sectarian lines to provide a better future for their children. And unfortunately what we've seen is a breakdown of trust," Obama said.

Washington has pointedly declined to endorse Prime Minister Maliki, a Shiite, who is blamed here for failing to reach out to the Sunni community in the two-and-a-half years since US troops left, thus laying the conditions for the current crisis.

Obama is warning that only a new effort to frame an "inclusive" political system by Iraqi leaders will keep the country together and repel the challenge from Sunni fighters who have seized several key cities in Iraq, including Mosul.

Obama, who based his political career on ending the costly eight-year US intervention in Iraq, has insisted Washington is not slipping back into the morass.

Kerry heads to Iraq

US Secretary of State John Kerry is also expected to travel to Iraq soon -- on what would be his second visit since taking over as the top US diplomat in early 2013 – but there is no clear timetable for when the trip will happen.

International leaders have called on the country to unite to face off the insurgent threat.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon also warned military strikes against the jihadists could prove counterproductive without any movement toward inclusive government.

The latest American offer of assistance fell short of Iraq's request for air strikes and drew derision from Tehran, which has offered its cooperation despite decades of enmity but also, according to the US, sent a "small number" of operatives into its neighbour.

"Obama's comments show the White House lacks serious will in fighting terrorism in Iraq and the region," Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, offered Moscow's "complete support" in a telephone call with Maliki.

Despite billions of US dollars spent in training and military hardware, experts say Iraqi troops care little about protecting Sunni towns or propping up Maliki.

Within Iraq, the security forces continued to battle militants in multiple parts of the four provinces that have partially fallen into militant control, albeit with mixed results.

Thirty-four members of the security forces were killed in a town on the Iraq-Syria border on Friday, while 30 pro-government Shiite militiamen died in a firefight with insurgents northeast of the capital in Diyala province.

Elsewhere, the fight for the strategic Shiite-majority northern town of Tal Afar, which lies along a strategic corridor to Syria, entered its seventh day.

Parliament is set to reconvene by the end of June, and will first have to elect a new president who will then appoint a prime minister.