Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday promised “intense and sustained” U.S. support for Iraq, but said the divided country would only survive if its leaders took urgent steps to bring it together. Hours before Kerry arrived in Baghdad, Sunni tribes who have joined a militant takeover of northern Iraq seized the only legal crossing point with Jordan, security sources said, leaving troops with no presence along the entire western frontier which includes some of the Middle East’s most important trade routes. U.S. President Barack Obama has offered up to 300 American advisers to Iraq but held off granting a request by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shi’ite Muslim-led government for air strikes to counter the two-week advance by Sunni militants. Officials have meanwhile called for Iraqis to form an inclusive government. The insurgency has been fuelled largely by a sense of materialization and persecution among Iraq’s […]