For the first time since the 1979 Revolution, an Iranian president has decided to check in on his neighbours next door in Iraq. Given the ancient animus between the two countries that bled each other dry during the eight-year war in the ’80s, killing a million people, it is a dramatic visit. And with a post-Saddam Shiite majority government at the helm of affairs in Iraq, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is predictably keen to show the nations as natural allies. In his own words, “there is nothing out of the ordinary when brothers meet, you know how deep our ties are.” Certainly, Iran remains Iraq’s second largest non-oil export market, and is now pumping in funds for infrastructure projects across Iraq. Joint ventures in banking and several industrial sectors, and a critical oil pipeline are possible talking points during this visit. Religious pilgrimages between the two countries also weave an enduring thread of connection, and Iraq’s Kurds and Shiites have cultural affinities with Iran.

But it would be naive to overlook the causes for Iran-Iraq rivalry that still exist. Of course, the elephant in the room, the unspoken presence looming over this neighbourly cordiality is the United States. Remember George Bush’s famous ‘axis of evil’ formulation when he incongruously lumped together Iran, Iraq and North Korea as enemies of the free world? Well now, with regime change in Baghdad, he’s unwittingly brokered a rapprochement between two of them.

Iran is also Washington’s biggest foreign policy challenge. And for all the fire and brimstone in Ahmadinejad’s remarks in Baghdad, the possibility of Iran weighing in to stabilise Iraq and, by extension, West Asia, holds an opportunity for the US. The US has used considerable leverage to put together an international effort to try to stop Iran’s nuclear programme. Its top leaders are at pains to stress that they have nothing against the Iranian people, just the policies of the current regime. On the Taliban, Iran and the US showed that they could quietly cooperate without a ‘grand bargain’. Could it happen in Iraq, where the US alleges Iran is arming insurgents? Post-Ahmadinejad, who knows.