The Iraqi government has refused U.S. requests to stop Iranian cargo flights to Syria, despite being aware of credible intelligence that the planes are transporting up to 30 tons of weapons, according to a U.S. official.
For Iraq, allowing Iran to ship supplies to Syria is some insurance that they can buy Iranian restraint. Not strong enough without our presence to fully resist Iranian pressure through their ability to manipulate Moqtada Sadr and other Iranian-friendly death squads, Iraq practices their own "reset" with Iran.
We aren't happy with that since it looks shockingly like "appeasement." If we still had 25,000 troops in Iraq to guarantee domestic and foreign peace, Iraq could have made a different calculation.
Hopefully, Iraq is strong enough with our smaller level of support to still emerge successfully from liberation from Saddam and the defeat of Syrian and Iranian efforts to break Iraq between them in civil war. And hopefully the small amount of support that Iraq allows Iran to send through Iraqi air space will be insufficient to materially affect the Syria revolt.
Much history is yet to be written.
