Middle-East ‘Frenemies’

The enemy of your enemy is your… frenemy; and so it is across the Middle East as the WSJ notes the spread of The Islamic State has united many parties once at odds with each other to become ‘strange bedfellows‘.
Strange Bedfellows Parties that display friction or outright aggression toward one another are finding themselves aligned in a desire to counter Islamic State.
Groups of colored lines between parties represent shared interests.

U. S. and Iran The U. S. and Iran share an interest in fostering an Iraqi government strong enough to fend off Islamic State.
U. S. and Syria The U. S. and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad share an interest in quashing Islamic State in Syria, even if the regime appears to put a higher priority on fighting other rebel groups.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on 08/31/2014.