Gulf Cooperation Council Secretary-General Jassim Mohammed Al-Badawi arrived in Baghdad last week carrying a precise institutional mandate: persuade Iraqi officials to prevent Iranian-backed militias from using Iraqi territory to launch attacks on Gulf states. Whether that mandate produced results remains an open question.
Iraqi media reports confirmed Al-Badawi reached the Iraqi capital on Tuesday afternoon for an official visit. The timing was pointed. Iraq received the GCC’s top diplomat as Iran observed the funeral of Supreme Leader Ali al-Khamenei, compressing two significant regional events into the same narrow window. Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has separately been pressing militias to surrender their weapons, a parallel effort that adds complexity to an already crowded diplomatic landscape.
The accountability question at the center of the visit is not subtle. Iranian-backed militias operating from Iraqi soil have repeatedly struck Gulf states with drone and missile attacks. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait have all been hit. Many of these groups maintain links to the Popular Mobilization Forces and have historically targeted US forces and the Kurdistan Region as well. The shift toward Gulf infrastructure signals a broader Iranian strategy, one that has effectively turned Iraq into a frontline for regional conflict, whether Baghdad consents to that role or not.
Al-Badawi held meetings with Iraqi officials to discuss regional developments and to signal Gulf willingness to support Iraq across multiple sectors. Sources speaking to Shafaq News Agency said the talks carried a direct message: Iraqi territory must not serve as a launching pad for attacks on neighboring states.
The most concrete institutional encounter of the visit was a meeting between Al-Badawi and Judge Faiq Zidan, President of Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council. The Iraqi News Agency reported that Iraq’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Safia al-Suhail, also attended. The two sides discussed enhanced cooperation in judicial and legal fields. The official statement that followed, however, offered only general language about cooperation. No specific commitments on militia control appeared in the public record.
That gap between diplomatic language and enforceable commitment defines the GCC’s structural problem. Iranian-backed militias have demonstrated both the capability and the willingness to conduct sophisticated operations. Drone attacks are relatively inexpensive to produce, difficult to attribute with certainty, and capable of striking critical infrastructure including energy facilities and airports. This asymmetrical threat has made Iraq a central arena in a competition that no single bilateral meeting can resolve.
The pattern of Iranian regional behavior suggests that external pressure tends to activate, rather than suppress, multiple operational fronts. Iraq’s geography and the presence of organized militia networks make it a convenient venue. The militias can simultaneously threaten Gulf energy infrastructure, pressure Baghdad, and destabilize the Kurdistan Region, generating leverage across several pressure points at once.
The GCC’s approach rests on incentives and dialogue rather than enforcement. The organization’s leverage depends substantially on whether Iraqi officials can, or will, exercise meaningful authority over armed groups operating within their own borders. Al-Badawi’s visit represents an attempt to strengthen that leverage through direct engagement and offers of cooperation. Without enforcement mechanisms or consequences for non-compliance, though, the practical outcome rests on Iraqi political will and institutional capacity, two variables that Baghdad’s own prime minister is still working to bring under control.