Iran tries to be the privileged ally of Iraq, compared to the USA

Iran's President Rohani's visit to Iraq signals a turning point in Tehran's strategy, both in the diplomatic and economic fields, to face US sanctions. The two countries share a common border of about 1,500 kilometers and, at the moment, seem to have overcome the historic rivalry present when Saddam Hussein was in power. The Iraqi country is composed of a high percentage of Shiites, about ninety percent, and for this characteristic it has a remarkable affinity with Iran. Tehran has identified a possibility in the neighboring country to overcome US sanctions, which are heavily affecting the Iranian economy. The project is to increase trade between the two countries, which now amount to about 12,000 million dollars, up to 20,000 million dollars; to do this, agreements have been signed in important sectors for both countries, such as: energy, transport, agriculture and industry. However, the problem that most haunts Iran is that of circumventing the effects sanctions produce on the payment system to Tehran. Washington has built a sanctioning system that relies heavily on money transactions to the Iranian country, penalizing banking institutions that allow the flow of money to the Ayatollah republic. The respective central banks would have thought up a system for exporting Iranian hydrocarbons to Iraq and from there sold to third countries by paying no more in dollars but in euros. If the United States has already threatened Baghdad and its banking institutions, it is necessary, however, to keep in mind the needs of the Iraqi country, which depends very strongly on Iran's gas supplies. Washington's requests to diversify suppliers clash with the greater economic viability of Iranian gas, due to lower transport costs, precisely because of the proximity between the two countries. Iraq finds itself, however, in the awkward situation of having two countries that are deeply enemy to each other as its main allies, this difficulty could be converted into an opportunity by the Baghdad government, which cannot renounce its relationship with the United States, but even, precisely because of the reasons expressed above, he can move away from Iran. Iraq could play a role, if not of pacification between the two sides, at least try to reduce the tension: it should be remembered that the starting point of the war against the Islamic State exists, where Tehran's fundamental role has been recognized, albeit implicitly , also from Washington. The US, despite the threats, cannot subject the Iraqi country to sanctions, because the consequences would be the impoverishment of a nation already in economic suffering and this could lead to a return to Islamic extremism. From a diplomatic point of view, President Rohani's visit could have the objective of making the relationship between Iraq and Iran more privileged than that between Iraq and the USA; this could be part of the strategy to counter the coalition of Sunni monarchies with the US (and Israel) and break the international encirclement in which Tehran is. The fact remains that in Washington a Shiite-speaking interlocutor is essential in the Middle Eastern chessboard, however Baghdad may not have liked Trump's direction in American foreign policy, which interrupted Obama's equidistance between Shiites and Sunnis, to favor relations with the latter. This imbalance, however, forces Washington to take the greatest possible caution against Baghdad, but it also offers the opportunity in Tehran, a victim of US sanctions following the unilateral withdrawal of the White House from the nuclear treaty, to exploit the greater affinities with the Iraq. The question is not secondary because the friendship with Iraq serves the United States to present itself in a sort of equidistance in the face of the religious question that divides Islam, but it is also important from the geopolitical point of view, because it allows us to maintain the his troops on the borders with Iran. The feeling is that this visit opens up to a variety of different scenarios, but all of them can influence the future of the region.