Shafaq News- Baghdad

Iraq's new government has signed 63 agreements, memoranda of understanding and partnership declarations across six countries in barely four months, an intensive diplomatic push aimed at attracting investment and expanding Baghdad's economic partnerships. Iraqi analysts, however, warn that signing agreements is easier than turning them into projects that deliver tangible results.

Al-Zaidi, a banker with no prior political career, took office in May 2026 as the compromise candidate of the Coordination Framework, an alliance of Shia political forces that includes parties with longstanding ties to Iran, after months of post-election deadlock. He inherited a fiscal emergency. The US-Iran war that erupted in late February had choked the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 90 percent of Iraqi crude flows. With oil revenues accounting for the overwhelming majority of state income, the disruption left the new government facing severe fiscal pressure. That pressure has added urgency to Al-Zaidi's push for foreign investment and alternative export routes.

The investment drive also fits Washington's vision for the next phase of US-Iraq relations. During Al-Zaidi's July visit, President Donald Trump framed the transition around a larger role for American companies as US forces withdraw by September 30. Al-Zaidi's itinerary reads as an answer to that expectation.

Read more: Iraq-US investment deals depend on implementation, experts say

The tour opened in the United States between July 13 and 17, where Iraqi and American institutions signed 48 agreements across oil, electricity, technology, finance, health and agriculture, with announced deals valued at more than $60 billion. Iraq's Oil Ministry later valued its agreements with US energy companies, including Chevron, Halliburton, HKN Energy and ConocoPhillips, at about $200 billion.

From Washington, Al-Zaidi flew to Qatar, met Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and signed nothing, then to Iran on July 23 for four transport and railway accords, but without the tanker exemptions or additional gas supply Baghdad had gone looking for.

Turkiye followed with five memoranda; France with six covering air defense, civil aviation and a gas protocol between the electricity ministry and TotalEnergies; Germany, where he arrived Tuesday, is expected to produce understandings with Siemens on power transmission.

For the parliamentary body that oversees such diplomacy, the ledger is already familiar. Mukhtar al-Musawi, a member of parliament's foreign relations committee, told Shafaq News that Iraq "has not felt anything" from al-Zaidi's earlier trips, because deals in energy, arms and oil keep foundering on the absence of follow-through.

Haidar Shalal Muta'ab, a researcher on domestic affairs, credited the government with widening Iraq's reach and opening political and economic channels, but insisted value is not counted in documents. The real test, he argued, is the passage from signing to "implementation, follow-up and evaluation," a passage requiring executive programs, timelines and accountability that most of these texts simply do not contain. He turned the point on the press as well: “coverage should not end at the signing ceremony but track what is actually delivered.”

Firas Ilyas, a professor of international relations at the University of Mosul, pointed to structural obstacles to implementation. Iraq has converted some agreements into real gains, he acknowledged, pointing to counterterrorism cooperation and energy and transport links that have begun to reintegrate the country into the regional economy. But he drew a hard line between "signing diplomacy" and "implementation diplomacy," blaming the gap on bureaucracy, changing governments and priorities, a weak investment climate and Iraq's multiple competing centers of power.

Foreign partners, he noted, no longer treat a signature with Baghdad as a guarantee; they want political, security and legislative stability before capital moves.

Khalid al-Ardawi, an academic and political researcher, focused on the legal nature of the agreements themselves. “Most of what Al-Zaidi has signed are memoranda of understanding: declarations of intent carrying no binding legal obligation.”

The French documents are his clearest example: letters of intent in defense and corporate cooperation with nothing to guarantee they become enforceable contracts. And the obstacle, in his telling, is not the foreign partner but “a political and security environment fractured by corruption, the *muhasasa* system of ethno-sectarian power-sharing, and the lack of a single, unified decision.”

Wary of committing to a state that may not deliver, he said, some governments let their understandings lapse into "diplomatic courtesy," and the frameworks stay "ink on paper."

The Atlantic Council noted this week that Al-Zaidi has only a narrow window to attract American investment into Iraqi oil while convincing investors that the country is a secure, commercially viable place to operate, a challenge it linked to his limited political authority within a system still shaped by Iranian influence. His cabinet, meanwhile, is unfinished: parliament approved only 14 of a planned 23 ministers amid factional bargaining. The contrast is notable: while Baghdad is negotiating new defense arrangements abroad, the Defense Ministry remains among the vacant cabinet portfolios at home.

Iraq has faced this problem before: agreements announced abroad have often encountered bureaucratic, political and financial obstacles at home. This time, however, the stakes are unusually high. Oil revenues are recovering from the disruption caused by the war, the US-led coalition's military mission is approaching its September 30 end date, and Al-Zaidi is trying to attract foreign capital while completing his cabinet.

The 63 agreements therefore offer a measurable test of his government's economic diplomacy. Their significance will ultimately depend on how many projects Iraqi institutions can implement at home.

Read more: Al-Zaidi sworn in as Iraq's prime minister with program already failed

Written and edited by Shafaq News staff.