Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made an official visit to Iraq on March 2. He became not only the first Iranian president to set foot on Iraq soil since the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, but also the first top Iranian leader to visit Baghdad in the past 50 years. In both respects, Ahmadinejad's Iraq tour was historically significant.

In the 1950s, Iran and Iraq were both close allies of the United States. In 1958, Iraq became a member of the Soviet Union's camp. During the Cold War, Iran and Iraq, belonging to two rival camps, were at loggerheads with each other. In 1979, Iran's Islamic revolution started. Then, Saddam Hussein, who was governing Iraq, launched a war against Iran, because he was afraid that the Iranian Shiite leaders would transfer the revolution to his own country. The war took eight years, cost hundreds of billions of dollars and had casualties of more than 1 million.

In 2003, the United States started the war in Iraq, which not only toppled Iran's enemy Saddam Hussein from power, but also established a Shiite-led Iraqi Government. After democratic elections, pro-Iranian forces came to power in the new Iraqi Government. As a consequence, Iran's influence in the country rapidly increased. Charles W. Freeman, Jr., the former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, concluded that the U.S. military occupation of Iraq actually made it convenient for Iran's political occupation of Iraq. His comments actually were true. Since 2005, the Iraqi president, two prime ministers and foreign and defense ministers have visited Iran. Therefore, the Iranian president's Iraq trip was not a big surprise.

Ahmadinejad went to Iraq with a big present in the form of a $1 billion loan, which provided timely help for the Iraqi people who are in deep trouble. The message that Iran hoped to deliver was that Iran would be an indispensable and responsible brother during Iraq's reconstruction after the war.

Iran made elaborate arrangements for Ahmadinejad's trip. Unlike U.S. President George W. Bush's secret stops in Iraq, during which he only stayed in the well-guarded Green Zone for several hours and met only with members of the U.S. military and some Iraqi leaders, Ahmadinejad's agenda and schedule had been announced in advance. His state visits followed a whole set of diplomatic hallmarks: a private flight, a red carpet, a public welcoming ceremony at the airport and a police-escorted motorcade. He did interviews with the media, and also made a pilgrimage to the Shiite "Holy Land," where he talked with ordinary Iraqis.

In comparing the visits of the American and Iranian presidents, the Iraqis could feel the results. While Bush's visits were an occupier's inspections, Ahmadinejad's visit was a state visit by a friendly neighbor. Before the end of Ahmadinejad's visit, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki declared that Iran had high credibility in Iraq and that the Iraqi people believed that Iran's recent stance would be helpful for Iraq to resume security and stability. Of course, his declaration was the opposite of the American stance on Iran.

Ahmadinejad not only made a friendly gesture to the Iraqi people, but also displayed Tehran's influence on the situation in Iraq. He was making an indirect announcement to the Americans that Iran's political existence in Iraq was insuperable. He even challenged the U.S. Government with his statement that Americans must accept the reality that the Iraqi people do not like them.

The U.S. presidential election now is undergoing a key period. Next year, the White House will have a new president. It is hard to predict what measures on Iraq and Iran the next president will undertake. But whoever the president will be, his or her government's strategy will include four principles to maintain the U.S. position as the only superpower in the world.

First, the United States must dominate the situation in Iraq, while Iraq must remain a U.S. ally. Second, the United States should generally pull itself away from Iraq under the precondition of the first principle. Third, Iran's challenge to the United States to lord over the Gulf region and the Middle East is intolerable. And fourth, the United States must prevent Iran from mastering nuclear technology.

The United States and Iran are fighting for their interests in Iraq. However, they also have shared interests there. They hope Iraq becomes safe and stable. Al Qaeda is their common enemy, and neither of them hopes that Iraq splits up. Iran's influence in Iraq is so strong that the United States can hardly pull out of the country without Iranian cooperation. The current Iraqi Government, which was elected through democratic procedures, is not only pro-U.S., but also pro-Iran. Now, the Al-Maliki Government is actively weaving between Iran and the United States, hoping to be a bridge between them and lead them to the negotiating table.

Iran's core interests in Iraq are to protect the Islamic regime's reign, so as to maintain Iran's position as a big country in the region. The U.S. goal is to change the existing Iranian administration and prevent Iran from obtaining more influence in the region. Conflict over their basic goals is the root of their disputes. To protect its own interests, Iran is developing nuclear technology despite worldwide criticism, getting involved in the Iraq situation and supporting Hizballah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.

The fact that the next U.S. president will want to get out of Iraq has become a trump card for Iran. Ahmadinejad's trip to Iraq actually aimed to deliver a strong signal to all U.S. presidential candidates that Iran is the one that is capable of freeing the United States from Iraq. But Iran's rescue comes with a precondition, which is the United States must acknowledge Iran's Islamic administration and its interests in the region. If the U.S.-Iran relationship gets better, at least in a short time, Tehran can help the United States to adjust its relations among different Iraqi parties and stabilize the situation there. If their bilateral relationship gets worse, Iran can create new tempests in Iraq through its deputies, and Iraq will sink into a large-scale civil war again.

It is true that Iran's influence in Iraq is great. But it doesn't mean that every Iraqi likes Iran and hopes that Iran will replace the United States there. In any case, religious and national conflicts still exist between them. Eight years of war have fostered hatred between their people as well. During Ahmadinejad's visit, the Sunnis in Iraq held anti-Iran protests. Some Iraqis believe that Iran is transferring revolution to Iraq.

Actually, the Iraqis are both anti-U.S. and anti-Iran. Even most of the Shiites in Iraq are not in favor of Iran's caesaropapist regime and ideology. They oppose the U.S. occupation, but they do not accept Persian dominance, because of their strong Arab nationalism. Iran predicts that once the U.S. army pulls out of Iraq, the Iraqis will not remain hostile to Iran. But in case that does not happen and the two countries become rivals once again, Iran is now seeking friends in every political party in Iraq. Therefore, the future of the Iran-Iraq relationship will not be bright.