(The Majalla) The sheer size of the US Embassy in Baghdad says a lot about Washington’s intentions for the country. It is one of the largest and most expensive embassies on the planet, with 21 buildings fitting into an area that is two and a half times the size of the Vatican City. Yet, when it comes to the subtleties of international diplomacy, size isn’t everything. Indeed despite the US war in Iraq costing $750 billion and 4,470 lives there is a danger that the super embassy could become a white elephant, an enduring testimony to the failure of the US project in the country. As one of the 1.5m US veterans of the Iraqi war recently bemoaned to The Economist; “at a great cost of blood and treasure, we achieved nothing tangible.”

Iraq has become a quasi-ethno-sectarian state, a hyper-version of Lebanon with oil and a restive population of 30 million. Its democracy suffers from corruption and an enduring gridlock; in 2010 it took 249 days for a government to form. Although George W. Bush and Tony Blair regularly appeal to history to vindicate their Iraq adventure, the reality of what was a disastrous experience was highlighted by concerns during the fall of Qadhafi as to whether the lessons from Iraq had been learnt. As Qadhafi’s compound in Tripoli was captured a plethora of articles compared Libya with Iraq with the headlines asking “how can the new authorities stop an Iraq-style slide into chaos?”

Wracked by deadly regular bombings, Iraq, now largely ignored by the international media, is currently undergoing a crucial transition. According to the State of Forces Agreement (SOFA) all US troops will leave Iraq by the end of the year. However the continued fragility of the security situation has led to an ongoing debate about whether or not the Iraqi government will ask for a US presence to remain, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta explained that “whether it’s diplomatic or whether it’s military, we’ve got a long-term relationship with Iraq. We’ve invested a lot of blood in that country.”

While a future agreement on troop presence will be a defining characteristic of future US-Iraq relations, the inability of Washington to influence its ally’s behavior has been shown up in the case of Syria. In August the Obama administration, in close coordination with Europe, announced that President Assad had lost all remaining legitimacy and should stand aside. Washington subsequently looked to organize an isolation of the regime in Damascus with a White House statement celebrating that Syria “can look only to Iran for support for its brutal and unjust crackdown.” In response Syria’s Ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Abdul Karim Ali, told Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television that “Syria is self-sufficient and has a lot of friends.” One of these friends appears to be Iraq, which is currently in the process of doing exactly the opposite of what Washington wants by actually enhancing ties with Syria. Last month Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki hosted a Syrian delegation of business and government figures to agree on the construction of a gas pipeline between the two countries, and the sale of subsidised oil to Syria. In addition Maliki has also ordered the shutdown of a United Nations camp for refugees from Syria in Iraq.

Maliki has a long and varied history of relations with Syria, having spent three years there in exile from Saddam’s regime (1979-1982). Iraq expert Professor Juan Cole explained Maliki’s decision making as determined by two main factors; firstly a fear of a hard line Sunni regime emerging in Damascus and secondly the fact that he “owes his position as prime minister to the support of Iran for coalition building of the Iraq Shiites. So he may be paying back a debt.” Another key pillar of Maliki’s fragile coalition, Muqtada Al-Sadr, issued his own statement rejecting western calls for Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad to quit, calling the embattled leader a “brother” who stood in opposition to the United States. Maliki has said that he hopes that Assad regime will “respond to the people’s demands and quicken the implementation of reforms,” whilst warning that “Israel is the first and the biggest beneficiary of this process” (the Arab Spring). Such language is noticeably similar to that of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who stated that “the Syrian government and people should be careful and implement the necessary reforms by themselves.”

Traditionally the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis has been the bedrock of Iran’s power in the region. However the removal of the staunchly anti-Iranian Saddam Hussein in 2003, and the rise of the Shi’a political alliances in Iraq, led to Iranian influence spreading further. The expansion of Iranian influence into Iraq has foreshadowed a very real clash with the Americans. This low level conflict has been characterized by the use of Iranian supplied Explosive Formed Projectiles (EFPs) in attacks on US soldiers, as well as high profile raids on US interests—including the kidnapping of 3 US hikers from inside northern Iraq. There have been reports of the US supporting anti-regime elements in southern Iran and hosting thousands of members of the Iranian opposition movement MEK in Camp Ashraf in southern Iraq. Major General Jeffrey S. Buchanan, the top US military spokesman in Iraq, declared that the Iranian government’s Quds force is “providing direct support” to Iraqi Shi’a militias, and that those militias are working to undermine the Maliki government. August even saw the rare use of US airpower against what US officials described as Iranian backed elements in the south of the country.

So against this backdrop can Washington isolate Syria from its neighbours by persuading Baghdad to support its, not Tehran’s, agenda? While the US and Iran continue to fight a low level proxy war in Iraq, it would appear that Tehran’s influence over the foreign and economic policies of an embattled Maliki regime is currently holding sway over that of Washington. Considering the scale of US efforts in Iraq over the past eight years this can only be described as a damning testament of the US failure to shape events in the country.