Has Al-Sudani's government succeeded in keeping the fire away from Iraq?

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[size=52]Has Al-Sudani's government succeeded in keeping the fire away from Iraq?[/size]

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November 13, 2024
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani seeks to keep Iraq out of the conflict in the region.
The Iraqi government, headed by Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, seeks to keep Iraq out of the conflict in the region, prevent the country from being exposed to any Israeli strikes, and prevent Israel from being targeted from its territory.[/size]
[size=45]In a meeting of the National Security Ministerial Council held on November 6, the council, headed by Al-Sudani, stressed that Iraq’s interest requires keeping its lands and airspace away from “the war machine that Israel seeks to expand,” according to a government statement.[/size]
[size=45]Fadi Al-Shammari, political advisor to the Iraqi Prime Minister, says, “The priority of Al-Sudani’s government is to keep Iraq away from the conflict, but this does not mean that his positions will change.”[/size]
[size=45]“Iraq is not only looking out for its own interests, but also seeking to end the war in the region, and is making important diplomatic moves with actors and influencers in the region and the world to achieve this,” he added in an interview with Alhurra.
The American website Axios quoted two American officials as saying last Tuesday that the United States had warned Iraq that it could be subjected to an “Israeli attack” if it did not prevent Iran from responding to Israel from its territory.[/size]
[size=45]At the same time, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein revealed that Iraq had received Iranian pledges not to use its territory to attack Israel, in the event of any response from Tehran to Israel's recent attack.[/size]
[size=45]“The Sudanese government and the Coordination Framework have tried to keep Iraq out of the wider conflict with Israel,” says Renad Mansour, director of the Iraq Initiative Project at Chatham House in London. “For many members of the Shia Coordination Framework, the focus and priority has been on domestic politics, and they have made many gains over the past year.”[/size]
[size=45]“But the regional escalation threatens their local project,” he added in an interview with Alhurra. “Iran has also pushed to keep Iraq out of the conflict so far, because it plays an important influential role in the region. It is difficult to say how far Israel will go and when Iraq will be targeted or intervene more, but that has been the policy so far.”[/size]
[size=45]Statements by government advisors and even the prime minister have recently focused on the need to keep Iraq out of the conflict in the region, despite reports and information indicating the possibility of armed factions being subjected to Israeli strikes as a result of targeting Israel from Iraqi territory.
On Tuesday, former US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and Director of the Arab Policy Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, David Schenker, said that “the priority now is to keep Iraq out of the conflict in the region.”[/size]
[size=45]Zaidoun Al-Kanani, an assistant professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, believes that Al-Sudani’s government or any other government in Iraq “will not be able to prevent strikes, whether Israeli or American.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Kanani said in an interview with Al-Hurra website: “The Israelis will reserve the response, and the government is unable to protect Iraq, just as it was unable to protect it from the strikes that came from it.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Kanani, who is also a researcher in Iraqi affairs, expects a direct response to Iraq, which may harm the state, given that these groups (militias) do not have official and clear camps, and these are the consequences of not controlling them, according to him.[/size]
[size=45]On more than one occasion, Al-Sudani sent messages to the armed factions loyal to Iran, stating that “the decision to go to war is in the hands of the state, and not in the hands of any other party,” in response to attempts to mobilize Iraqi public opinion to push towards dragging Iraq into the war raging in the region.[/size]
[size=45]Alhurra / Special - Washington[/size]
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