Speaking on the sidelines of the annual conference of Iran's exiled opposition -- in which he was a guest speaker -- General James Conway said the gunnies who have overrun major parts of Iraq were unlikely to make any further significant gains.
The lightning offensive this month by jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original...
(ISIL) and other turban groups has killed more than 1,000 people and displaced tens of thousands.
Until now, ISIL has primarily made inroads in Sunni Arab areas in the north of Iraq, supported by Sunni turbans that loathe current Shiite Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki... Prime Minister of Iraq and the secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party. Maliki imposed order on Basra wen the Shiites were going nuts, but has proven incapable of dealing with al-Qaeda's Sunni insurgency. Reelected to his third term in 2014...
"The worst is over," Conway said. "The ISIS (as ISIL is often also called) are probably surprised themselves with their degree of success."
But "they will not mess with the Kurds, they will not be able to take Storied Baghdad and they can't go into the south where the oil fields are because it's all Shiite territory."
The Kurds already have their own autonomous region in the north and have defended key towns outside this area against the turbans after federal forces withdrew.
Conway said that the Kurds may take advantage of the current situation and "establish once and for all a separate Kurdistan."
Already, Kurdish fighters have been defending the ethnically divided northern oil city of Kirkuk from turbans, and the president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region declared Friday that there would be no going back on Kurdish self-rule in this locality.
Conway said he also feared that Sunni turbans who have been supporting ISIL so far would start pulling away.
"It's only been a marriage of convenience... There's going to be some fighting between them and the Sunnis."