Excerpt from the link below:
“Putin clearly benefits from rising crude prices, it is his Lukoil that is developing (and investing vast amounts of money in) the vast Iraqi West Qurna-2 oil field. It is not clear how he would feel about it falling into ISIS hands.”
This is a very interesting geo-political play. Russia supports Syria and one of the enemies of Syria is ISIS. ISIS, if it hasn’t already been able to obtain U.S. weapons, just grabbed TRUCKLOADS of U.S. weapons (#BringBackOurHumvee). Russia would therefore be a natural ally of mutual interest to Maliki because ISIS is an enemy of Iraq too. Additionally, Russia can act and it wouldn’t anger the Iranians. And let me add that Russia can act because Obama has wet his pants again. Oh, did I mention that there is a lot of OIL in Iraq? Putin knows it, so why not make a play for it? Besides, it would be another chance to rub Obama’s nose in his own ___________ .