ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the policies of the EU and its Member States regarding the reconstruction of Iraq and the containment of Iran as well as their compatibilities with US policy in the region. It analyses the challenges that the European Union is facing in Iran and Iraq since the 1990s. It focuses on the strategies and the EU's frameworks of cooperation in both countries. The current confrontational course of relations between Iran and the EU could be defined as economic warfare and ideological confrontation because of the rhetorical challenge of the Islamic Republic of Iran vis--vis European values' such as human rights and democracy. The bilateral relationship between Iran and Iraq is decisive in order to solve the Iraqi state-building crisis following the 2003 US military intervention. Iranian influence in Iraq is first and foremost political due to the ties between the new Iraqi political elite and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
