Hamid Redha Al-Ibrahimi
For a while, Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi has been seeking to fill the role of mediator, and to open a closed channel of dialogue between Riyadh and Tehran; In order to ease the tension in the region, and play a leading role in providing political weight, represented by Iraq, his first steps were successful when he brought the two sides together in a unified negotiating table. But there are serious concerns and doubts about the continuity of Iraqi mediation. Those doubts stem from several factors, ranging from Iraqi bargaining power, the acceptability of Al-Kadhimi on both sides, and ending with the type of problems between Tehran and Riyadh, and their connection to many factors such as: (the nuclear file, the issue of Yemen and Lebanon, and the way Biden’s government deals with the problems of the Middle East).
Al-Kadhimi’s government is well aware of the extent of the problems facing its mediation, so it has set short-term goals for its steps, which are less ambitious than solving the entire problems between the two neighbors of Baghdad, as the Iraqi mediation focuses on benefiting from partial understandings between the two parties to calm its internal scene, in this regard Al-Kadhimi sees himself facing a real problem represented in the imbalance of power between Tehran and Riyadh in the Iraqi scene, in the absence of the American desire to continue interfering in Iraq, and it seems that Al-Kadhimi is unable to present Saudi Arabia as the representative of the Western-Iraq, and this is what we will discuss in detail in this research.
