Quote:Don’t be surprised, therefore, if one of these days Putin comes to the aid of Obama once again in Syria. Russia can help Obama legitimize the international campaign against the islamic State by getting a UN Security Council mandate for it; Russia can be helpful in the US’ dealing (or the lack of it) with Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad. Make mo mistake, Russia’s stance (here, here and here) on the Islamic State threat is unequivocal and broadly supportive of the US-led international campaign.
Russia’s only caveat is that the US operations in Syria should have the concurrence of the Syrian government and/or should have a UN mandate, but then, what stops Obama from seeking a UN mandate is also the apprehension that Moscow may not cooperate.
Quite possibly, the ice will be broken regarding Syria today at the meeting between Sergey Lavrov and John Kerry in New York. The New Cold war, which started with a bang, might be ending with a whimper.

Quote:Iran offers to be West’s natural ally

The overwhelming majority with which the House of Commons in London passed a few hours earlier the resolution endorsing the government’s proposal to join the US-led military strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq catapults Prime Minister David Cameron to a pivotal role in President Barack Obama’s strategy. With Britain by its side, US doesn’t need the ramshackle “coalition of the willing”, while without Britain, even six Saudi Arabias within that coalition wouldn’t have meant much.
Cameron has begun preparing himself already. His meeting on Wednesday in New York with the Iranian president Hassan Rouhani (just before the House of Commons vote) was symbolic insofar as it has been the first such meeting since the 1979 Islamic revolution, but London wouldn’t have made such a historic move except with the foreknowledge that Iran’s integration with the international community is imminent.
Indeed, the facade of the P5+Germany process has been torn asunder and Washington and select European allies are directly negotiating with Tehran, marginalizing any role for Russia. The US-Iranian consultations have intensified and the Iranian statements also point in the direction of a real possibility of a nuclear deal emerging by the end-November deadline. 
As I wrote earlier, the two tracks — Iran’s role in the US-led fight against the Islamic State and the nucelar talks — are running neck-and-neck. All pretensions to the contrary — that the two tracks are not interlinked — have been cast aside.
In an extraordinary speech at the UN General Assembly on Thursday (the day after the Cameron-Rouhani meeting), the Iranian president came out openly that a nuclear deal will open up infinite possibilities of cooperation between the West and Iran across the board. Rouhani’s plea was two-fold: a) West should realize that Iran is its only “natural ally” in the Middle East; and, b) If the nuclear problem can be resolved, that enables Iran to work with the West in creating a New Middle East.
Most certainly, Washington and London would regard this as the nearest that Iran has come to signal that it is willing to help in a political transition in Syria just as it helped the transition in Iraq, which has met with Obama’s full satisfaction.