Jassim Mohammed Al-Badawi, Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council, landed in Baghdad last Tuesday with a single clear objective: persuade Iraqi officials to stop their country from being used as a launchpad for drone and missile strikes against Gulf neighbors.
The visit came as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait have all faced attacks launched from Iraqi territory. Iranian-backed militias, many formally linked to Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, have expanded their targeting beyond US forces and Kurdish areas to strike at Gulf energy infrastructure, airports, and critical facilities. Iran, through these groups, has systematically positioned Iraq as a forward operating base for regional pressure.
The timing added layers of difficulty. Iraq’s Prime Minister Ali al Zaidi has been working to pressure militias into surrendering their weapons, a struggle that lays bare how little control Baghdad actually exercises over armed groups sustained by Iranian backing. Al-Badawi’s arrival coincided with a period of heightened Iranian influence in Iraq following the funeral of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ali al-Khamenei, complicating negotiations already crowded with competing interests.
According to Iraqi government sources cited by Shafaq News Agency, Al-Badawi planned meetings with Iraqi officials to discuss regional developments and announce Gulf states’ support for Iraq across various fields. The core message was unambiguous: Iraqi territory must remain neutral ground. A source told Shafaq News that discussions would stress “the need to keep Iraq away from the battlefield and to prevent the use of Iraqi territory to launch any attack on the Gulf states, as happened during the past.”
The official schedule reflected the diplomatic weight Baghdad attached to the visit. On Wednesday, Judge Faiq Zidan, President of Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, received Al-Badawi and his delegation. The two sides discussed ways to enhance cooperation in judicial and legal fields, according to a statement from Iraq’s News Agency. Iraq’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Safia al-Suhail, was present, a signal of how seriously Baghdad regarded the engagement. The official communique, though, offered only general language about cooperation, with no public indication of whether concrete commitments on militia control were secured.
The broader strategic picture explains why Gulf states are investing diplomatic effort in Baghdad at all. Drones present an asymmetric challenge: cheap to produce, difficult to attribute, and capable of striking sensitive infrastructure hundreds of kilometers away. When Iran faces international pressure, it activates multiple fronts at once. Iraq, with its proximity to Gulf capitals and its network of armed groups loyal to Tehran, becomes a key arena for exerting pressure while maintaining plausible deniability. The militias can threaten Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE while simultaneously squeezing Baghdad and the Kurdistan Region.
Meanwhile, the GCC’s approach leans heavily on incentives rather than enforcement. The organization seeks regional quiet and reduced tensions with Iran, but success depends on Iraqi willingness and capacity to constrain groups that operate with Iranian resources and direction. As one source told Shafaq News, the strategy relies on cooperation and carrots.
The open question is whether those carrots, absent any enforcement mechanism, can persuade actors with deep ties to Tehran to abandon a strategy that has proven effective at minimal cost. For more context on the regional dynamics, see https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-901474.