A regional union or a union of isolation between Iraq and Iran?

When politics collapses into a full‑fledged state of isolation, fragile states begin inventing projects that exist only on paper—or in hurried phone calls. This is precisely what Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian did when he proposed to Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid the creation of a “regional union” to promote development and stability during a phone conversation, even as Iran reels under American strikes. A union? Regional? Development? In the Iranian context, these words sound exactly like a drowning man proposing the creation of a swimming club. And Pezeshkian—whose presidency amounts to little more than a bureaucratic chair under the ceiling of the IRGC—did not specify which countries would be invited to this union. Naturally so. Who would accept in the […]