For the U.S., such alliances are a variation of the "Pottery Barn Rule" of "You break it, you buy it."

In this case it is more one of "You excluded these guys from full participation in the world, you labeled them as "evil", and now they are not so surprisingly working together and don't like you very much." A "you built it, you deal with it." situation.

We love enemies though, as that is what makes containment work. If we can't get anyone to be our enemy, we have no one to contain, and then what?? Come up with a new strategy?? AQ and all these guys put together hardly make a pimple on the Soviets butt though. Oh, for the good old days...

(Seriously, we could disempower this little coalition with some easy changes of policy, and it is high time for a new guiding strategy for the nation anyway.)