Baghdad Summit: Will Fear of Shiite Militias Keep Arab Leaders Away? Syrian President al-Sharaa will not attend due to threats on his life by Iran-backed militias. Other Arab leaders may stay away as well, but analysts say some will attend precisely to counter Iranian influence on Baghdad. By Hudhaifa Ebrahim/The Media Line The 43rd Arab […]
World
The Media Line: Baghdad Summit: Will Fear of Shiite Militias Keep Arab Leaders Away?
Audio By Carbonatix
Baghdad Summit: Will Fear of Shiite Militias Keep Arab Leaders Away?
Syrian President al-Sharaa will not attend due to threats on his life by Iran-backed militias. Other Arab leaders may stay away as well, but analysts say some will attend precisely to counter Iranian influence on Baghdad.
By Hudhaifa Ebrahim/The Media Line
The 43rd Arab League Summit began on Saturday in Baghdad, with top leaders of just half of the countries in the Arab world believed to be attending. Nearly half of the Arab leaders are reported to have declined attendance out of fear of personal attacks as well as concern regarding the continued control of Iranian-backed Shiite militias over some areas in Baghdad.
This marks the second summit held in the Iraqi capital since the US invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime. The first was held in March 2012. In addition to the Arab League Summit, the fifth Arab Development Summit and the Tripartite Cooperation Mechanism Summit between Iraq, Egypt, and Jordan are also taking place in Baghdad.
“This summit will be successful by all standards,” Ihsan Ali, a diplomat at the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told The Media Line. “Simply accepting Baghdad as host of the Arab Summit, and the attendance of several heads of state, will be a positive development for Iraq, which is deeply connected to its Arab surroundings.”
Hisham Al-Alawi, undersecretary of the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a press statement that the expected level of attendance at the Arab Summit is “good” and no less than the level of participation at the previous summit, hosted by Bahrain in May 2024.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani similarly said in a press statement that “the level of attendance so far is acceptable and customary at Arab summits.”
Top leaders of seven Arab states were absent from last year’s summit: UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, King Mohammed VI of Morocco, Sultan Haitham bin Tariq of Oman, Emir of Kuwait Meshal Al Ahmad Al Jaber, Tunisian President Kais Saied, and Chair of the Transitional Sovereignty Council of Sudan Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan.
According to the Arab League system, a country that does not send its head of state or highest authority can be represented by a chosen representative, such as a crown prince, prime minister, or minister of foreign affairs. The minimum diplomatic representation at the summit is the country’s ambassador and permanent representative to the Arab League.
Al-Alawi confirmed that prominent participants include Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and Rashad al-Alimi, chair of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council. Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani will attend instead of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
According to an announcement by Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein, the Arab Summit will also be attended by representatives from 20 Arab organizations, in addition to representatives from international organizations, including the UN secretary general. The Spanish prime minister will be the guest of honor at the Baghdad Summit.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun is not expected to attend. Lebanese newspapers reported that Aoun withdrew from the summit due to his participation in the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV on Sunday in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican.
Tensions with Shiite militias
Prior to the summit, disputes arose between Iranian-backed Shiite militias and Iraqi security forces. After carrying out renovations on the road to Baghdad International Airport in preparation for the summit, the government removed all banners hanging by the road, including those of former Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani and former Popular Mobilization Forces commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Both men were killed in a US airstrike on the road to the airport in January 2020.
The Shiite militias in Iraq insisted on displaying the men’s images and flags of the Popular Mobilization Forces on the airport road, while the Iraqi authorities refused to do so. Iraqi authorities were concerned that doing so would provoke other Arab leaders who consider those groups to be terrorist organizations.
Despite these tensions, Iraqi politician Ahmed al-Alwani said that Arab leaders have no reason to fear attending the summit in Baghdad.
“Perhaps some Arab countries are afraid to come to Iraq because of the control of Iranian-backed Shiite militias, but these militias will not take any action that would affect the summit,” al-Alwani told The Media Line.
He described Iraq as a safe country in which the Islamic State group is no longer present. “There are no longer armed manifestations in Iraq, and clashes occur in remote and distant areas,” he said.
The absence of Syrian President al-Sharaa was the result of threats issued by several pro-Iranian Shiite militias to target Ahmad al-Sharaa if he arrived in Baghdad. Those threats relate to al-Sharaa’s past as a leader of the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaida splinter group that fought against Iranian-backed militias in Syria.
According to Iraqi media reports, al-Sharaa joined al-Qaida in Iraq after the US invasion in April 2003. He was arrested and imprisoned before being released and returning to associated groups in Syria. Shiite militias accuse him of being an extremist and of killing many of their members.
Looming Iranian influence
An Iraqi Foreign Ministry source who declined to be named told The Media Line that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is expected to attend the Arab Summit as a guest of honor. “As of early Friday morning, his presence or absence has not been confirmed,” the source said. No official statement has been issued regarding the matter.
Esmail Qaani, commander of Iran’s Quds Force, arrived in Baghdad on Wednesday evening and was received by Iraqi national security adviser Qasim al-Araji. This surprise visit raised many questions, with some wondering whether it was intended to arrange a visit of the Iranian president to Baghdad or to advance Iranian agendas in the Arab League.
Iran’s influence on Iraq looms in the background of the summit, with many Arab countries hoping that the Arab League can counterbalance that influence.
Egyptian journalist Heba Mohsen said that the summit “brings Iraq back to the forefront of the Arab world.” She told The Media Line that the presence of Arab leaders in Iraq conveys the message that the Arab world values Iraq.
Saudi journalist Mohammed Al-Ghamdi similarly said that Arab leaders may “take the risk” of facing Iraq’s Shiite militias in order to send the message that Iraq is an Arab country and not an Iranian proxy.
“Saudi Arabia now has many projects in Iraq, and there are more projects coming,” Al-Ghamdi told The Media Line. “As do the rest of the Gulf states. This is inevitable. If we want to distance Iraq from Iran and return it to the Arab fold, we must offer an alternative and invest there.”
Summit agenda
Meetings between Arab countries’ permanent representatives to the Arab League preceded the Baghdad summit. During these meetings, the Emirati delegation withdrew due to clashes with the Sudanese delegation over the chair of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
Tensions are escalating between the United Arab Emirates and Sudan due to accusations by the Sudanese Sovereignty Council that the UAE supports the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary force. That group has been leading a military rebellion since April 2023. The UAE denies these accusations outright.
The summit itself is expected to focus mostly on economic issues, such as increasing intra-Arab trade, electricity interconnection, and other economic projects. That’s in contrast to several previous meetings and summits that focused on the crisis in Gaza.
The summit will also discuss other topics, such as the call to halt Israeli military operations in Yemen targeting the Houthis. No consensus was reached on the matter during the preparatory meetings for the summit.
Other topics to be discussed include the ongoing civil war in Sudan, the new Lebanese government, talks between Iran and the US, climate change, and US tariffs.
Outsize costs
Official Iraqi documents reveal that the cost of hosting the Arab Summit amounted to approximately $600 million, with expenses including repaving roads and purchasing armored vehicles to transport the delegations.
For Iraqi journalist Zuhair Qasim, that sum reveals misplaced priorities. “It doesn’t matter whether many Arab leaders attend or not. This is a formal and protocol-based summit. Iraq spent $600 million to host the summit, and Baghdad should have been more deserving of these sums than the summit’s guests,” he told The Media Line.
“This summit will add nothing to Iraq and will only produce a few statements, and no one will care about these protocol statements,” he said.