http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0725/p01s03-wome.html<snip>
"The Iranians are running the ship in Iraq, not the Americans. They also have
more chips on the table in Iraq than the US," says Riad Kahwaji, who heads the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis. "The situation in Iraq is strategically more in favor of the Iranians than the Americans."
Trade between Iran and Iraq over the past year amounts to almost $1 billion, says Iraqi Finance Minister Byan Jabr al-Zubaidi. Trade between Iran and Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region accounts for half of that.
Mr. Zubaidi adds that Iran just finalized a $1 billion loan deal with Iraq tied to specific investments. And he expects business ties to grow once Iraq passes a law regulating direct foreign investments.
Iran was also one of the first countries to sign a "friendship treaty" with Iraq's Parliament. Some of Iran's parliamentarians were in Baghdad last month to meet with top Iraqi officials where they offered to rebuild the Shiite shrine in Samarra that has been bombed twice.
Iran recently gave Mr. Maliki an Airbus 300 jetliner to use for government business.
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