Why The Russians Won't Win Against Extremists in Iraq

So considering where the fighting is and where the IS group should be dislodged from – Sunni Muslim-majority areas – the new alliance will have a lot of trouble gathering the right intelligence in Iraq.

“The new alliance is Russia's attempt to open a front against the US, in response to the Ukrainian crisis,” suggests local political analyst Ahmad al-Alousi. It's a way of bargaining about the Ukraine conflict, al-Alousi argues, “because Russia knows only too well it doesn't have the kind of experience that the US does, in ongoing conflicts in this region.”

There are also fears that this could lead to a kind of new “Cold War” in the Middle East, with the battlegrounds Syria, and then possibly Iraq.

“The biggest danger for Iraq is that we become a battleground for the US as it faces off against Russia in the Middle East,” leading Sunni politician, Atheel al-Nujaifi, told NIQASH. “But our country and our society cannot bear any more conflicts like this from the outside.”

The Iraqi government now faces a difficult path. The US will refuse to work with this new alliance. The Iranians say that they may withdraw their support in the fight against the IS group. Yet the Iraqi government says it must accept any help it can get in the fight against the IS group.

At the same time the Iraqi government needs internal consensus, rather than internal wrangling, in order to achieve the kind of balanced and diplomatic approach to both the US and to the Russians and Iranians that is now needed.

As usual, Iraq cannot, and should not, take sides. As one former Baghdad correspondent for the New York Times put it so well, “Iraq may well remain more of a stage than an actor”. And this may be true of this new, problematic alliance too. The way forward for Iraq's government, and it's beleaguered though very diplomatic Prime Minister, will not be an easy one. The Iraqi people can only hope a careful path can be found.