Strange bedfellows: The battle for Tikrit shows the absurdity of Iraq

The campaign being conducted by a collection of allied forces, ostensibly under the command of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, with Iranian forces in and U.S. support expressly excluded, raises a troubling question about America’s involvement in that country’s affairs, 12 years after the 2003 invasion.
It’s an especially acute question since Saddam Hussein, the cruel dictator whom the United States overthrew, at least kept order in the country, including careful preservation of its world heritage sites and treasures. At Nimrud, many priceless artifacts have just been destroyed by elements of the Islamic State group.
The Iraqi offensive to try to take Tikrit back from forces of the Islamic State is a development the United States favors. The military campaign would take territory and an important town away from the militant group, expanding the part of Iraq under central government control. If the Iraqi government forces, whom U.S. forces have been training, retake Tikrit, it will also be a morale booster.
The worrisome part is that the Iraqi forces appear to be supported and even led by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps elements, headed by an Iranian general, Qassim Suleimani. Furthermore, U.S. forces were explicitly told to stay out of the campaign by Mr. Abadi. That lessens the chances of the campaign’s success, since keeping the United States away means forgoing U.S. air support of the Iraqi and Iranian forces. American air support was decisive in Kurdish troops’ ability to chase the Islamic State group out of Kobane in Syria.
Barring the use of U.S. and Iranian forces on the same side on the same battlefield, which would require them to coordinate, indicates the Iraqi government’s recognition of the “strange bedfellows” aspect of overall U.S. involvement in the struggle in Iraq and Syria.
That is the difficult part, and probably the inherent folly in the U.S. position in the Middle East these days. The United States is fighting on the same side as anti-Sunni Shiite militias, the anti-U.S. Bashar Assad regime in Syria and the government in Iran, which some Americans consider a U.S. enemy. All of them oppose Israel, which America supports. U.S. allies, such as the Sunni states, including Saudi Arabia, oppose all of them.