Business Insider quotes Rafik Hariri Center Nonresident Fellow Ramzy Mardini on Russian flights to Syria over Iran and Iraq:
“Neutrality is the best Washington can hope for in Baghdad,” Ramzy Mardini, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, told the Times. “Iraq is not a dictatorial state like many of the U.S. allies in the Middle East.
“Iraq is still a fragile state whose leaders are exposed to politics. In the discourse of Iraqi politics, forcing Abadi to side with the US against Assad is like realigning him with the Sunni axis against the Shia one.”