Imad Salah Sheikh Daoud – Professor of Public Policy/Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Court Political Issues/Al-Nahrin University.
Has the need-to-gas season started?
Introduction:
Since the 1960s and earlier, we have spoken about many paths of cooperation between (Baghdad, on the one hand, and Paris, Rome, and Moscow, on the other) in the economic, educational, agricultural, and industrial spheres, especially mechanical industries, the manufacture of trucks and pharmaceuticals, as well as the petroleum industry and the military sector, which have gradually escaped since 1980, reaching the maximum extent of estrangement following the events of August 1990; In the wake of the 2003 US occupation, the oil-for-food program continues its rupture, except in some joints of the military sphere. Following the Government of Mr. Mohammed Shiaa Al-Sudani (which launched a government program aimed at sustainable development and energy sector development), Iraq has undertaken numerous visits by high-level officials in the capitals above, which this paper will attempt to analyze in the light of the evidence in the Iraqi or regional arena.
Paris-Moscow, new interest in Baghdad
At the end of the first month of 2023, the Prime Minister of Iraq visited the French capital of Paris and met with President Macron; The visit resulted in the signing of 51 bilateral agreements on economic areas and administrative reforms aimed at improving living conditions in addition to implementing agreements that were frozen in the transport, energy, and investment sectors, One of the most important since 2021 with Total Energy, France, has signed a $10 billion contract. s efforts to renew its electrical networks. The contract also includes the construction of assembly units, processing of gas extracted from crude oil used for power generation, and planning for the construction of a photovoltaic power plant (one gigawatt) in southern Iraq. This comes in the wake of the Jordanian capital’s hosting of the second Baghdad Conference on Cooperation and Partnership in December 2022, which was sponsored by France, and in the presence of President Macron, to confirm Paris’ endeavor to have a role in Iraq and to try to return it to its regional and international center by participating in this conference. France has a prominent role to play in the Middle East and the region, particularly in the economic and investment fields, in combating terrorism and in countering extremism, according to former Jordanian MP Nidal Al-Talani to the Russian agency Sputnik.
The aforementioned French role was not the result of current days, but rather a modified version of Paris’ position and alliances vis-à-vis Baghdad following the 2003 occupation of Iraqi territory by United States and United States forces. The day of the alliance (Moscow and Paris as well as Berlin); To create an axis of rejection on the European continent, to realize the virtue of the moral pressure on London and Washington, and to convey a message to millions of people in the world that what is happening in Iraq is not a “global” project. In other words, the economic benefit of all parties to the Axis is sought by Paris and Moscow, even as their alliance is broken today under the Ukrainian-Russian war, or as a result of Russian support for European far-right parties, including the parties.
