Here is the dream: extremists of ISIS have so alarmed the Sunni and Shi’ite nations of the Middle East that they will draw together, unite under a US led coalition and defeat the bad guys. Flowers may be involved; also, bluebirds.

Clearly, Secretary of State John Kerry is dreaming this dream. And no, he is not insane; there are some straws in the wind that suggest both Iranian-Saudi and Iranian-American rapprochement. But, no, Mr. Secretary, it won’t add up.

There’s evidence for the Saudi-Iranian warm-up: a recent report claimed that during an August 26 meeting in Jeddah, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal agreed on placing a Sunni at the head of a key security post and Iraq’s foreign ministry. That followed Foreign Minister Faisal’s unprecedented statement of public outreach to Iran: “We are ready to improve bilateral ties based on common interests, honesty, and openness.”

All very nice, but the potential for Iranian-Saudi rapprochement stops at the Syrian border. Iran is behind Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and will insist on maintaining its political influence over Iraq and Syria. The Saudis, meanwhile, fear growing Iranian influence in the region through Tehran’s proxy groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. Most importantly, the Saudis are implacably opposed to Assad.

And there are more problems: Tehran believes that Riyadh is backing ISIS. Senior Iranian officials have echoed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s assertion that ISIS is a creation and tool of the US and its allies, specifically Riyadh. National Security and Foreign Policy Parliamentary Commissioner and former IRGC commander Mohammad Esmail Kowsari, moreover, reiterated this allegation saying, “Saudi Arabia runs ISIS.” Iran’s foreign ministry also criticized the coalition: “Some of the countries in the coalition are among financial and military supporters of terrorists in Iraq and Syria.”

Finally, the question is will ISIS be enough to unite the Middle East? Or to put it another way, is destroying ISIS important enough that both Iran and Saudi Arabia are willing to put their mutual suspicions on hold? Let the Supreme Leader answer that question: yesterday, Khamenei said,

i will not work with the Americans because their intentions and hands are polluted… The truth is that the US is looking for an excuse to do the same thing that they did in Pakistan…in Iraq and Syria. The Americans know that if they do this, the same problems that they’ve had over the past 10 years in Iraq will happen again.

In other words, hold the bluebirds for now.