Zaidi tells Trump Iraqi soil will not be a launch point for attacks on its neighbours
The readout of Thursday’s call answers a Gulf grievance directly. Whether Baghdad can enforce it is a separate question, and this week’s PMF fight is the test.
Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi told US President Donald Trump on Thursday that Iraqi territory would not be used to launch attacks on other states in the region, according to Arab News, which filed the report late on 5 November. The same report notes that Iraq’s Gulf neighbours have accused militias loyal to Tehran of launching strikes from Iraqi territory against them. The Files has not seen the Iraqi prime ministry’s own readout or a White House statement, and the “launch point” formulation is Arab News’s rendering rather than a verified quotation from the Arabic original; the fact of the call is solid, the precise wording is not. Arab News is Saudi state-aligned, and the framing of the readout flatters the Gulf position.
Zaidi took office on 14 May 2026 with only a partial cabinet after parliament failed to agree on interior and defence, approving 14 ministers at a session the Council of Representatives logged at 49 minutes with 266 members present. Parliament filled most of the remaining posts on 15 October, approving 11 ministers and three deputy prime ministers, a vote The Arab Weekly reported included a US-sanctioned figure. The Atlantic Council records that Trump intervened in late January to oppose Nouri al-Maliki’s bid for a third term, after the Coordination Framework had nominated him when Mohammed Shia al-Sudani agreed to step aside. Zaidi, a businessman and political outsider, emerged from that impasse.
Assessment: A pledge about territory is the cheapest thing an Iraqi prime minister can offer Washington and Riyadh, because the cost of breaking it falls on someone else. Zaidi’s leverage over the groups that would do the launching is exactly what the PMF bill is about, which is why the two stories on this desk are one story. Note also the asymmetry in the call: the Iraqi side volunteers restraint on outbound fire while, per an Iranian-funded outlet’s liveblog, an Iraqi official said last week that Baghdad had received no official US notification of plans to resume attacks. Treat the readout as positioning ahead of the budget and the PMF vote, not as a change in capability.