The United States and Russia seem set to jointly confront their common enemy - Islamic State - once President-elect Donald Trump is sworn into office on 20 January 2017.
This possibility emerged after a telephone call between Trump and Vladimir Putin following Trump's stunning presidential victory on 8 November.
President Obama's failure to co-operate with Putin for the last two years in seeking to degrade and destroy Islamic State has resulted in hundreds of thousands of needless civilian deaths and injuries and the internal and external displacement of millions of Syrians and Iraqis.