Adversity, they say, makes strange bedfellows. This is especially true in the contemporary Middle East.

The rise of so-called Islamic State (IS), which controls a swathe of territory in Syria and Iraq, has prompted the creation of a large, multinational coalition including the US, Turkey, and Washington's Gulf allies, all intent on its destruction.

So too of course is Iran and, not surprisingly, Israel. This has resulted, for example, in pro-Iranian militias in Iraq appearing to be on the same side as the US.

The struggle against IS in Syria has prompted even more contradictions - with Gulf states suspected of supporting Sunni groups linked to al-Qaeda - while al-Qaeda affiliates like Jabhat-al-Nusrah have battled US-trained moderate Syrian militias.

So what exactly is going on? How are we to make sense of some of these curious alliances and contradictions?

Broken states

Countries like Syria and Iraq, whose modern day characteristics are the product of imperial retreat after World War Two, are broken and may be impossible to put back together again.

Earlier this month, outgoing US army chief Raymond Odierno wondered aloud if apartition plan might be a better outcome for Iraq.

As for Syria, it is almost impossible to predict what the shattered country might look like if the Assad regime were to be defeated. Greater chaos seems to be the most likely outcome.

Amidst all this chaos the anti-Islamic State line-up seems clear enough.

A tally of the countries engaged in the air campaign against IS includes the US, many of its key European allies, the Saudis, a number of Gulf states, as well as Canada and Australia.

Of course some countries - Britain, for example - are restricting their air strikes to IS targets in Iraq and not Syria. And it is the distinction between Iraq and Syria that explains some of the complexity.

Battle lines

Of the two, Iraq is straightforward. The country can be broadly divided into three:

• a weak Shia-dominated government in Baghdad struggling against both Islamic State and endemic corruption, and achieving little success against either; it is backed by the Americans, their allies and of course Iran, which is an implacable opponent of IS
• the semi-autonomous region of northern Iraq dominated by the Kurds, who are among the leading and most effective fighters against IS
• the Sunni minority, many of whom feel excluded from the Shia-dominated Iraqi state and some of whom are fighting alongside IS

So to sum up, in Iraq, US and coalition air power is striking IS targets. The Iraqi military, Kurdish fighters and pro-Iranian militias are battling with varying degrees of tenacity on the ground.

In Iraq then, for all the complexity of the local politics, the battle lines are reasonably clear.

Syria, however, is totally different and that is because there is not just one war going on there but two.

At one level there are similarities to Iraq - US and coalition air power is striking IS targets backed up by Kurdish and other forces on the ground. But the so-called moderate anti-IS forces are weak and divided, and efforts by the Americans to bolster them with training have had minimal results.

America's Gulf allies - the Saudis and Qatar for example - have also been supporting various groups in Syria but they have had their eye very much on a second war: the battle against Iranian influence in the region exemplified by the embattled Syrian regime of President Assad and his (and Iran's) Hezbollah allies from Lebanon.

They have been fighting alongside Syrian government forces and reliable reports indicate that senior Iranian commanders have also been involved.

For the Gulf Arabs, the struggle against Iran is every bit as important as the battle against IS - possibly even more so. They have been pushing money and arms into Syria in an effort to further undermine the Assad regime.

The US also wants to see the back of Mr Assad but doesn't see this as achievable by force.

The fact that the Assad regime too is fighting IS only adds to the ambivalence in Western capitals and explains why a coherent strategy for the future of both Iraq and Syria has been so difficult to achieve.

The Kurdish factor

Indeed the Syrian civil war and the Assad regime's battle for survival probably merits a label all to itself even though it encompasses elements of the two wars already mentioned.

The counter-Iranian struggle is also being played out in Yemen where the Saudis and their allies have intervened militarily and are again thought to be backing groups that Washington would regard as simply al-Qaeda-linked terrorists.

Then there is the Kurdish factor. The Kurds have political and national aspirations of their own but they are split between Turkey, Syria and Iraq and divided into various competing factions.

The shake-up of Iraq and the impending collapse of Syria threaten to bolster Kurdish aspirations, as does US support for some Kurdish factions who have proved strong fighters against IS.

This is anathema to the Turkish government in Ankara which fears that the break-up of Syria, and possibly Iraq too, could encourage Kurds within its borders to break away.

Turkey is part of the coalition and recently gave the Americans a green light to use its base at Incirlik for operations against IS.

Turkey too joined the air campaign, but the overwhelming bulk of its strikes have been not against IS targets, but against Kurdish fighters who are objectively the coalition's allies in the fight against IS.

So to the three wars already mentioned - between the coalition and IS, the efforts of the Gulf Arabs to contain Iran, and the Syrian civil war - a fourth can be added: that between Turkey and at least some of the Kurds.

Israeli alliances

Indeed a fifth "war" - the region's longest-running conflict - that between Israel and the Palestinians is also being influenced by the rise of IS.

The collapse of Syria as a military player is a mixed blessing for Israel.

IS-inspired groups are active on both its northern border and in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. But the rise of IS (and a shared concern about Iran) has brought Israel and the so-called moderate Arab states closer together.

The most obvious manifestation of this are the growing military ties between Israel and Jordan. Israel has sold or transferred both attack helicopters and drones to Amman over recent weeks.

There are reports too that when Israeli and Jordanian warplanes flew to the US recently for a multinational exercise, the Jordanian F16s were accompanied on their transit by Israeli tanker aircraft.

While all of the attention of analysts has been focused on the potential collapse of two existing countries - Syria and Iraq - the real driving force in regional politics is the response to the rise of two putative new states, the caliphate of Islamic State on the one hand, and the potential emergence of a new Kurdish nation of some kind on the other.

It is not just the demise of the old order that is forging unusual alliances, but the shock of the new.