WIREDGOV

As Iraq faces regional war, fiscal uncertainty and armed-group politics, Ankara is seeking to turn security cooperation, trade and connectivity into strategic leverage.

Iraq has once again become a critical pressure point in the widening US-Iran confrontation. Direct exposure to both American and Iranian military action has sharpened Baghdad’s security vulnerabilities, while the crisis around the Strait of Hormuz and mounting US financial pressure have constrained oil exports and deepened fiscal uncertainty. Reports that drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia and the UAE originated from Iraqi territory – with Iran-linked Iraqi militias suspected of involvement – have placed additional strain on Baghdad’s new and still untested government led by new prime minister Ali Faleh al-Zaidi. Iraq has condemned the attacks, and Zaidi stated that Baghdad would work with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi on a joint-investigation.

Iraq now faces a dual challenge: avoiding deeper entanglement in regional escalation while proving that Baghdad can restrain armed groups whose cross-border activity threatens Gulf security and Iraq’s own stabilisation agenda. It is in this fraught environment that Turkey is seeking to recast its Iraq policy as a broader stabilisation agenda linking security cooperation to trade, infrastructure, energy and regional connectivity.

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