I’m not sure we should be too upset about this. Goodbye, ungrateful volcano. From the WSJ:
Iraq’s military said Sunday it has signed an intelligence and security cooperation deal with Russia, Iran and Syria to fight Islamic State, an agreement that strengthens ties between the four countries amid increasing Russian military involvement in conflicts in Syria and Iraq.
The four nations will “cooperate in collecting information about the terrorist Daesh group,” said Iraq’s Defense Ministry, using the Arabic acronym for the Sunni Muslim extremist group, which has since last summer controlled wide swaths of Iraq including Mosul, its second-largest city.
The deal was prompted in part by “increased Russian concern about the presence of thousands of terrorists from Russia undertaking criminal acts with Daesh,” the ministry said.
It further compounds America’s declining influence in the Middle East, as Russia expands its military presence in the region, primarily in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. At the same time, the U.S.-led international coalition that has been striking Islamic State in Iraq and Syria from the air since last fall is grappling with a series of high-profile setbacks.
Iraqi and Kurdish ground forces lost control of the strategic city of Ramadi to Islamic State in May, and a widely touted campaign to retake Anbar province from the extremists has been stalled for months, despite U.S. support. A three-year, $500 million U.S. program to arm and train moderate rebels to fight Islamic State and other groups in neighboring Syria has all but collapsed.
The deal effectively formalizes years of military collaboration among the four nations.
Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government has for years cooperated with Mr. Assad and Shiite-majority Iran in the fight against extremists.
Baghdad has also allowed Russian military transport planes to fly over its airspace to supply Syria with weapons, against the wishes of its American allies. Russia last year sold jet fighters to Iraq’s air force that were used to carry out bombing campaigns against Islamic State, after a promised U.S. shipment was delayed. Baghdad is currently negotiating with Moscow to buy more advanced weaponry.
American officials have accused Iraq’s government of allowing Iran to use Iraqi airspace to transport weapons to Mr. Assad, a charge Iraq has denied. Iranian-backed militias have also played a leading role in the ground fight against Islamic State in Iraq, often failing to coordinate with U.S. officials.
Our next President will have to form a working relationship with Russia. It should have begun a long time ago because in this war – the war between civilization and barbarism – we’re on the same side. We don’t have to love each other to recognize common interests and to act in a coordinated manner.
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One Response
from Strategypage.com July 14, 2015 Iraq got its first few F-16s into service. While being used mainly for attacking ISIL on the ground, the F-16s can also use air-to-air missiles and the Iraqi pilots can go after Iranian cargo aircraft transiting Iraqi airspace on their way to Syria and force them to land or turn back. Iraq could never do this before and Iran was able to pretty much use Iraqi air space for these flights without any fear of the transports being threatened. Iraq has always tolerated this Iranian use of Iraqi airspace to rapidly supply the Assad government in Syria. Iraq did this despite constant pressure from the United States to block the Assad aid. Now the Iraqis are paying more attention to their American allies than their Iranian neighbors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IvxpNTNmzs