The distance between Baghdad and Damascus is not measured in kilometers, as it reflects an ambiguous relationship between two countries divided by ideologies and regimes, yet united by history and geography.
It was destined for the two cities that one should inherit the other, and then that one should fall after the other. Baghdad inherited the caliphate from Damascus, only for Baghdad to fall to the Mongols in 1258, with Damascus following suit two years later. They continued to alternate in rise and fall until Baghdad fell to the Baath party in 1968; two years later, Damascus also fell to the Baath in 1970. Consequently, Hafez al-Assad assumed the presidency in 1971, two years after Saddam Hussein was appointed vice president in 1969, as if the path leading Syrians and Iraqis into the unknown were paved with repetition.
On the road to Damascus, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi did not merely traverse the 850 kilometers separating the two capitals; he also collapsed decades of conflict and division between them. The handshake at Damascus International Airport between al-Zaidi and Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who broke traditional protocol to greet him on the tarmac, is the handshake of the brave to establish peace. It is a handshake that encapsulates a transformation in a relationship long governed by rivalry - one historically entangled in the competing dynamics of the dual Baath factions, the wars of militant groups, and the shifting calculations of friend and foe states that long dominated its trajectory.
For al-Sharaa went to Baghdad as a fighter and returned from it as president, while al-Zaidi, coming from a business background, represents a political faction in power, a portion of which fought to defend the Assad regime for years. Therefore, bridging the distance begins with rebuilding the relationship on the foundation of stability and mutual interests, and moving past a recent history that extracted heavy prices from both sides.
In Damascus, al-Zaidi laid his cards on the table. From here, wealth must begin to flow. The corridors between the two capitals are no longer for transporting fighters, but have instead become a vital sphere for transferring wealth, exchanging interests, and serving as a gateway for visitors and tourists.
This vital sphere taking shape between Baghdad and Damascus is reconstructing the Eastern Mediterranean and its borders, at a moment when the region is being reshaped anew amidst the risks of conflicts that could further dismantle what has already been dismantled and prevent the unification of what can still be unified. It is a historical moment that must be capitalized upon to block the path of anyone seeking to dismantle or weaken the state system, or hold it hostage to major regional and international anticipations and interests forged outside shared Arab interests and specific Iraqi-Levantine interests.
In this geographical space, the shores of Basra, with all their economic and strategic weight, become a harbor for Damascus, while the port of Tartus becomes part of an economic sphere connecting Iraq to the Mediterranean. Between the ports and cities, a space of economy, civilization, and humanity can take shape, alongside the spiritual bonds manifested in the Iraqi prime minister's visit to the Umayyad Mosque, accompanied by the Syrian foreign minister, and subsequently to the Sayyida Zeinab Shrine, in order to suppress strife and liberate the sacred from destructive ideologies.
Here, claims to the monopoly of the sacred collapse; for the shrine is guarded by the people of the Levant, and the mosque stands as an emblem of unity and gathering, rather than a pretext for fighting and dismantling. The spiritual bonds between societies can serve as a bridge to reconnect what wars have severed, instead of being transformed into fuel for conflicts.
The two countries, which were divided by the Baath party and whose ties were severed by fighting, are today capable of forging interests that render them a model for a secure neighborhood - one where wealth and mutual interests intersect, and where the state reclaims its position as the guarantor of society's unity and future.
Consequently, between the mosque and the shrine, reconciliation is not completed by a handshake alone, but rather by transforming it into a political, economic, and human project that protects both countries from a repetition of the past and grants their peoples an opportunity to forge a different future.
