Paving the Way for Closer Relations

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Could it be the Syria and Iraq have decided to take the plunge into a new era of better bilateral relations?

Recent monitoring of exchanges between Syria and Iraq indicate that some degree of change might be in the air. And if a new Damascus-Baghdad axis were to be created, the results in terms of the regional balance of power and influence would be nothing less than seismic.

The border between the two states has been closed since Syria declared it shut on 8 April 1982, when the rapidly accelerating estrangement between the two countries reached its apex.

Apparently, nothing could reconcile the rift between Syria's President Assad and President Saddam Hussein of Iraq which began with accusations of a Syrian coup plot against Iraq in 1979. The two Baathist strongmen seemed doomed to remain locked in perpetual conflict for regional hegemony. But an article published in May by the Paris-based newspaper, Al-Watan al-Arabi, claimed that the two leaders have recently held a secret meeting on the Iraq border, which might prefigure a rapprochement in the long-standing cold war …