The Iraqi-Syrian relations had never been on a straight line. During the time of the monarchy & Baghdad Alliance; the national & Unionist Syria was cooperating with Egypt during Abdul Nasser's era for overthrowing the ruling regime in Iraq and they managed in this process. However, Abdul Karim Qasim turned the table upside down before the two countries of the dual unity and established a trend closer to communism. At that time, left wing parties were opposing the unity and prefer a union due to their wish to keep the communist domination through a soviet support. Even during the time in which Al-Baath party had been established in Damascus & Baghdad, hostility bigger than any previous one had been constituted or established between the two branches. At that time, Saddam Hussein considered himself the alternative of Abdul-Nasser in leading the Arab nation and believed that his Arabism is more honest and credible than Hafez Al-Assad whose extraordinary political skillfulness was well known. Each of the two leaders believed that he should be the role player, rather than his shadow. In spite of that both of them were receiving their arms from the Soviet Union & Russia later; bringing them close to each other had still been impossible. Furthermore, during Khomeini time Al-Assad established an ally with Iran which was the first enemy of Saddam & it had been said at that time that Al-Assad's skillfulness in establishing this proximity (with Iran) is more important than Saddam's adventure of starting a war with a major regional power. Yet; what had been unknown to everyone was that Al-Assad was allying through the sect (i. e. on a sectarian basis). This kind of alliance has become clearly visible during the time of Bashar, the son, when the attitude has turned to a strategic partnership that led to the birth of Hezbollah. Thus, this trilogy, together with Iraq, constituted the new collar of Shiites & Alawites. Damascus has not been in harmony with Baghdad's regime after the occupation of Iraq. It provided shelter for the Baathist leaderships who were the remains of Saddam's ruling time and allowed them to resist and ally with other powers in a way that caused security and political crises and led to the occurrence of massacres on a sectarian basis. Furthermore, Damascus doubled its activity related to training and arming members from Al-Qaeda and pushing them towards the Iraqi cities through its borders in a way that led to the occurrence of a crisis between the two regimes. These things kept going on until the rise of the Syrian Revolution which reflections on the two parties of the strained relationship have been severe. However, the hostility has changed this time to an ally against the Sunnis of Syria due to the two regimes' (of Syria & Iraq) feeling that that ruling of Sunnis will change the power balance in Iraq, Lebanon & Iran. Thus, the borders were opened for delivering the aids, arms and volunteers from Iran & Iraq to the government of Damascus. After the Free Army's domination on the border crossing points of which some link between Syria & Iraq; the attitude has changed towards supporting the opposition in Iraq as a reaction from the Syrian rebels. Thus, the Sunni and tribal parties have become more optimistic due to their expectation of a new Syrian regime which supports their situations against the Iraqi sectarian state. These historical interrelated images, together with the cases of political and partisan instability did not lead towards a brotherhood between Damascus & Baghdad, in spite of that the realistic vision states that the occurrence of political and economic integration between them shall lead them towards becoming an important power in the Arab region due to the various links between them. However, the struggle of each of them for the leadership kept them hostile to each other. The only good thing that happened between them was the Iraqi's army support for the Syrian one in its two wars with Israel. Yet, conflicts have returned again as soon as these two wars ended & are going to keep existing until the two countries become ruled by regimes that give the priority to the interests, though such a hope does not look to be close.
