Iraq Agrees to Share Intelligence with Russia, Iran, and Syria

According to the Iraqi military, "the increasing concern from Russia about thousands of Russian terrorists committing criminal acts within ISIS." has influenced Iraq to share intelligence with the Russian regime. The United States has been nervous about the Russian military's build-up in Syria and "confirms suspicions of some sort of cooperation between Baghdad and Moscow."

In recent weeks, Russia has sent fighter aircraft, tanks, and missiles into Syria; and Syria and Iran are starting to receive intelligence. This makes the United States the "odd man out" in the words of Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona (retired)  due to U.S. opinions that the current Syrian government should be overthrown while Russia, Iran, Syria, and Iraq have made destroying ISIS the priority, not the al-Assad regime.

Iran is an interesting choice in ally as well, as not only are the Iranian and Russian regimes close, but Iraq and Iran have a troubled history (fighting a war in the 1980's that ultimately ended in a stalemate). Iran has been arming, training, and supplying Iraqi Shiite Muslims to fight against ISIS, which is a Sunni organization. Iraq is not their only odd ally, however; Australia has begun giving information to the Iranian government on suspected Australians going to take up arms with ISIS.

Dan Bennington

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/27/middleeast/iraq-russia-iran-syria-intelligence-deal/index.html