After weeks of alarm over the lightning advance of a brutal, transnational jihadi group in Iraq, a nation fearing for its very existence has been granted some short-term relief.

Stepping back into Iraq, the US has ramped up air strikes against the jihadis of the self-styled Islamic State. For now at least, the oil-rich northern Kurdish region’s capital of Erbil appears secure and the group known as Isis has been driven out of the strategic Mosul dam.

Equally important has been the political change in Baghdad, where Nouri al-Maliki, the autocratic Shia prime minister, has agreed to withdraw his candidacy for a third term in office. He has been replaced by Haidar al-Abadi, a pragmatic, though untested Shia politician who is considered more acceptable to the country’s Kurdish and Sunni minorities.