Iraq is located to the north of the Gulf, Iran to the east and the Gulf Cooperation Council to the west, and it is the only country neighboring the two sides, and the only point of contact between the Arabs and Iran.

Therefore, the conflict between the two banks of the Gulf with Iraq has gone through three international alliances and four Gulf wars, and a fifth Gulf war may erupt, before the conflict ends.

And the equations of the two parties' struggle over Iraq are worthy of attention, including that they wrestled with him when his political system differed from them, and over him when their political system differed with Khomeini's accession to power.

One of the equations of the conflict over Iraq is that it is being run by the United States in an indirect conflict in the most dangerous geopolitical region in the world, to prevent it from getting out of control, with an American insistence on including Iraq in the Gulf Cooperation Council.

These four Gulf wars and the three international alliances against it confirm this insistence that was hinted at by former US Defense Secretary Robert Gates in the 2008 Manama Dialogue.

Robert Gates said that Iraq's accession to the Gulf Cooperation Council will lift Iran's grip on it, and it is also confirmed by America's insistence not to withdraw from the Gulf after the second Gulf War, and from Iraq and eastern Syria after the end of the fourth Gulf War.

The US policy with Saddam’s regime and Iran before and during the four Gulf wars, and after Trump’s arrival, confirms this insistence, as Saddam’s regime and Wilayat al-Faqih are rogue regimes within the national security strategy set by Anthony Lake, the US National Security Adviser in 1993.

One of the equations of the conflict is that the United States was behind the policy of supporting the Kurds and Najaf against Saddam's regime, which hosted Khomeini against the Shah.

Today, it is repeating the same policy that aims to distance Qom from Najaf on the one hand, and to strengthen the role of the Kurdistan Region, which emerged after the second Gulf War and is still equivalent to the existence of Saddam's regime and then to Iran in Iraq.

One of the equations of the conflict is that Iraq has remained the focus of the American decision-maker’s attention, as it is part of the vital areas in the world that he cannot abandon and does not guarantee in this vital region the luxury of neutrality for any of its parties, in his battle against his opponents who are strategically unable to defend their allies.

One of the equations of this conflict is that the American policy in managing the two-bank conflict over Iraq prevented the Soviets in the first Gulf War and contained Iran until the armistice of 08/08/1988, and it almost repeats the same policy in the Fourth Gulf War to contain Iran and push Russia to abandon Iran.

Despite this American insistence, Iran has become unrivaled (with the exception of the Kurdistan Region) as the official political, security, economic and military sponsor in Iraq, especially after America's withdrawal at the end of 2011.

But at a time when Iran entered the era of a possible historical sunset, there is talk of another conflict equation represented in talking about the emergence of an Arab or Middle Eastern NATO, which may be similar to the Baghdad Pact (CENTO) that appeared in the fifties of the last century, and west with the emergence of Wilayat al-Faqih.

The difference between the new NATO and the old Cento is that Saudi Arabia, which was not a member of the old Cento, due to a Saudi-Egyptian conflict, has become today with Egypt after the end of the Saudi-Egyptian conflict and the Gulf states and Jordan are members of the upcoming NATO, unlike Iran and Iraq, who were within Cento yesterday, not with NATO today.

Also among the equations of the conflict is that the strategies of Iran, America and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries are characterized by self-balancing and self-control mechanisms that control the conflict and prevent it from getting out of control and confusing the opponents.

America's strategy was characterized by a sine wave, as it rises with direct intervention and descends with relief and tactical withdrawal or double containment. Every rise and fall in America's sine wave has a philosophy.

Carter announced that the Gulf is an American national security, and Reagan inaugurated the era of strategic conflict and support for Iraq in its war against Iran, and Bush the father removed the Gulf from the circle of international conflict, and Clinton came with the principle of double containment, and Bush Jr. with the principle of preemptive strikes and occupied Iraq and placed Iran and Iraq within Axis of Evil.

While Obama opened up to Iran and withdrew from Iraq and signed the Lausanne Agreement with it, according to the Baker Hamilton report, while Trump withdrew from the nuclear program and re-sanctioned Iran and imposed 12 conditions for lifting sanctions.

At a time when Iran’s strategy was characterized by its dual role between the state and the non-state, as it advances once with the state and then with the state, the strategy of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries was characterized by agreement on identifying risks, but they differ in the ways to address them, until Iran, which refuses to recognize the council and rejects its policy, said that the Council Cooperation with it exercises the role of opponent and referee.

And one of the important conflict equations is that Iran’s strategy was the strategy of exporting an offensive, expansionist, religious trans-border revolution, whose main goal is to defend its regime, escape from its internal problems and try to impose hegemony, while the strategy of the GCC countries was defensive and realistic aimed at maintaining regional balance.

The Gulf Cooperation Council did not allow Iran, during the four Gulf wars, to harm the security of any of its countries, but rather launched the Storm of Decisiveness in Yemen, at a time when Iran reached the peak of its regional rise in 2015.

Although Iran reached the peak of its ascent in 2015, but at the same time it gave up its nuclear sovereignty in Lausanne, which was a bridle with which Trump pulled it out in 2018, and did not guarantee that America would not target its regime, and it did not get a seat in the international coalition to combat terrorism, although it practically fought with it.

One of the equations of this conflict over Iraq is that the first and third Gulf wars ended with a truce without peace or surrender, while the second and fourth Gulf wars ended with something else.

The second war ended with the siege of Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait with twelve Security Council resolutions that ended with the occupation of Iraq, and the fourth coincided with its end Iran’s entry into the era of the siege of Iran uncharacteristic since 1979 with twelve American conditions, as if the path of Iran after the fourth war Similar to Saddam's path after the second war.

As the conflict over Iraq reaches the end of the Fourth Gulf War, the possibility of a fifth war has become possible and whether or not it will happen depends on Iran's behavior, whether or not Iran returns to the seventh item from which it left without a war in 2016.

And despite the fact that Iran, after Trump’s sanctions, turned corners with him in the four capitals and the Russians played the role of mediator between it and its opponents, the coming years are by no means Iranian years of rest.

After the collapse of the Soviets and the Second Gulf War, which took the Gulf out of the circle of international conflict, Iran realized that it might be another Soviet if it took on a role greater than its size.

But it expanded after the 9/11 attacks, and the global war on terrorism made it 17 years after its announcement, that it had entered the era of slaughter with or without a knife, as the Soviets had been exposed to before.

Writer Dr. Omar Abdel Sattar Mahmoud