![\"ADEX](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/0x0.jpg\")
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The Cheongung surface-to-air missile system is on display during the Seoul International Aerospace and Defense Exhibition (ADEX 2025) at KINTEX in Ilsan, Goyang, South Korea, on October 20, 2025. (Photo by Chris Jung\/NurPhoto via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
NurPhoto via Getty Images<\/p>\n
After Iraq faced unprecedented joint U.S.-Saudi airstrikes against Iran-backed militias on its territory early on Wednesday, its government has declared its \u201ctop priority\u201d is to modernize the country\u2019s air defenses. Baghdad made similar declarations over six years ago following American and Iranian strikes on its sovereign soil.<\/p>\n
Tensions between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis in Yemen boiled over in July, threatening the March 2022 ceasefire. Amid renewed Houthi attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure, the kingdom also found itself under fire from drones launched from Iraq to its north. Iran-backed militias in Iraq previously targeted Saudi Arabia during the height of the Iran war and even after the April 8 ceasefire. This time Riyadh joined the United States by launching a series of airstrikes against those Iraqi militias backed by Iran\u2019s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. <\/p>\n
\u201cU.S. and Saudi fighter aircraft struck multiple terrorist logistics and weapons sites across eastern Iraq in a strong response to over 30 IRGC-directed aerial drone attacks in the last 72 hours,\u201d read the U.S. Central Command statement<\/a> on the joint attack. Iraq\u2019s Popular Mobilization Forces stated that the strikes killed 20 and wounded 32 of their fighters. The PMF are a state-sanctioned paramilitary force but also have groups within its ranks that operate independent of Baghdad and at Tehran\u2019s behest. <\/p>\n Baghdad was clearly caught off guard by these strikes. Government spokesperson Haider al-Aboudi said<\/a> Iraq hadn\u2019t \u201cgranted any approval for attacks on specific sites or groups within Iraqi territory\u201d nor had the government had any \u201cprior knowledge of the attacks on Iraqi territory.\u201d Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi canceled a trip to Saudi Arabia previously planned for Thursday. <\/p>\n Zaidi\u2019s spokesperson Sabah al-Numan said the prime minister had \u201cissued strict and immediate orders\u2026 to raise alertness and readiness to maximum across all camps and bases, particularly at the official bases of the armed forces and the Popular Mobilization Forces.\u201d <\/p>\n Furthermore, Numan said that modernizing and rebuilding the country\u2019s air defense through the acceleration of plans<\/a> to acquire radar and air defenses is a \u201ctop priority.\u201d<\/p>\n Such comments are nothing new. In fact, Iraq began 2026 with what looked like a promising outlook<\/a> for the future of its limited and neglected air defenses. Reports from late 2025<\/a> indicated that it would begin receiving the medium-range Cheongung-II, or KM-SAM, air defense missile system it had ordered from South Korea as part of a landmark $2.78 billion deal. It\u2019s also expected to finalize a deal for 14 advanced Dassault Rafale F4 multirole fighter jets from France and was already upgrading its airspace coverage with acquisitions of French-made Thales Grand Master 403 and GM200 radars. <\/p>\n Far from accelerating air defense procurement, Baghdad may actually fail to realize its initial plans to upgrade its air defenses that predated the present Iran war. <\/p>\n Earlier in the Iran war, Numan told<\/a> Iraqi Kurdistan\u2019s Rudaw Media Network that the government had decided to manufacture air defense systems for countering repeated drone attacks. The systems envisaged by the plan would provide point defense for important facilities. Furthermore, he said they would protect facilities inside the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq, which faced constant attacks from Iran and militias inside Iraq, in addition to the federal provinces. <\/p>\n However, that nascent plan has already hit a major stumbling block. In July, Iraqi Kurdistan\u2019s BasNews reported<\/a> that Iraq is unable to protect Iraqi Kurdistan\u2019s airspace. Iraq\u2019s air defense commander reportedly told lawmakers that the autonomous region\u2019s airspace isn\u2019t under Iraqi control and therefore \u201cwe are not permitted to protect its skies.\u201d According to the report, Muhannad Ghalib al-Asadi also clarified that the Cheongung-II delivery has been delayed since Baghdad still hasn\u2019t paid its second installment. \u201cThe first payment has been made, and the second installment is still pending,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Earlier in July, Iraq\u2019s Shafaq News reported<\/a> that Iraq is at risk of losing the contract altogether, with South Korea warning that it could even sell the system elsewhere if Iraq doesn\u2019t complete its payments. Iraqi MP Faleh Al-Khazali told the outlet that Iraq paid the initial $500 million installment but has delayed further payments that were due last year. <\/p>\n It\u2019s worth noting that the United Arab Emirates received its first Cheongung-IIs<\/a> at the height of the Iran war when it was under daily fire, swiftly pressed them into service and achieved multiple intercepts, marking the system\u2019s combat debut. Consequently, Seoul would presumably not baulk at delivering these systems to Baghdad amidst active regional conflict once it fulfilled its payments in full. <\/p>\n Iraq also recently ordered Turkish systems<\/a>, most likely the Korkut anti-aircraft gun for point defense against drones. Effectively integrated, these Korean and Turkish systems could potentially provide a layered defense for Iraq against everything from fast high-flying ballistic missiles to small slow low-flying drones. The Korkuts could even provide essential protection for the higher-end Cheongung-II batteries against close-range threats like FPV drones launched from nearby. <\/p>\n All this seems up in the air for the moment. <\/p>\n In the late 2010s, Iraq openly flirted with upgrading its air defenses with long-range Russian S-300 or S-400 strategic air defense missile systems. Baghdad was aware that it could end up incurring American sanctions under the Countering America\u2019s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act introduced in 2017 and reportedly suspended talks<\/a> on an S-300 acquisition in 2019 due to this real risk. <\/p>\n Baghdad\u2019s calculations briefly changed in January 2020. After U.S. airstrikes killed 25 Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah militants in Iraq and Syria in late December 2019 in retaliation for a militia rocket attack that killed a U.S. military contractor in Kirkuk, large protests occurred at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. On January 3, President Trump made the fateful decision to order a drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran\u2019s IRGC\u2019s extraterritorial Quds Force, and Kataib Hezbollah commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. They were both killed as their car left Baghdad International Airport. A few days later, Iran ordered a direct ballistic missile attack targeting an Iraqi airbase hosting U.S. troops. <\/p>\n Iraq similarly felt scandalized that its sovereignty had been so blatantly affronted and disregarded. It immediately signaled it would restart the process of acquiring the strategic Russian systems to give it some capability to deter or prevent such attacks in the future. Iraqi Ambassador to Iran Saad Jawad Qandil and the chairman of the Iraqi Parliament Defense Committee Mohammad Reza al-Haider both told media that Iraq was negotiating an S-300 acquisition. <\/p>\n Moscow encouraged Baghdad, suggesting it should opt for the more advanced and expensive S-400 over the S-300 it previously opened negotiations over. Echoing Turkey\u2019s justifications for its contentious S-400 acquisition completed the year before, which led a ban from the F-35 program and CAATSA sanctions slapped on Ankara, Iraqi officials claimed America offered no viable alternative. \u201cWe are talking to Russia about the S-400 missiles but no contracts have been signed yet,\u201d Karim Elaiwi, a member of the Iraqi Parliament Security and Defense Committee at the time, told<\/a> The Wall Street Journal. \u201cWe need to get these missiles, especially after Americans have disappointed us many times by not helping us in getting proper weapons.\u201d <\/p>\n Igor Kurushchenko, a member of Russia\u2019s defense ministry\u2019s general council, also pitched the S-400 as a sure way for Iraq to ensure its \u201csovereignty and reliable protection of its airspace.\u201d \u201cIraq must be able to protect itself from missiles fired from the U.S. and Iran,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Russian Ambassador to Iraq Maxim Maksimov clarified<\/a> that Iraq didn\u2019t make any formal request for S-400s. As Iraq seems to have rediscovered with the Cheongung-II delay, acquiring higher-end air defense systems can require a hefty financial commitment. <\/p>\n None other than Russian President Vladimir Putin hawked his air defense wares a few months before the Soleimani assassination. On September 14, 2019, Saudi Arabia endured an unprecedented drone attack against its vital oil infrastructure claimed by the Houthis but widely suspected of being orchestrated by Iran. (Incidentally, the enormous Abqaiq facility targeted then appears to have been targeted again<\/a> in past week\u2019s attack that Saudi Arabia just retaliated against alongside the United States.) Barely concealing his evident glee, Putin dubiously boasted that Saudi Arabia\u2019s American-made air defenses failed where Russia\u2019s would\u2019ve succeeded. Therefore, he urged Riyadh to follow in Turkey’s and Iran\u2019s steps by buying S-400s and S-300s. It\u2019s worth recalling in the years since then that Israeli airstrikes destroyed all of Iran\u2019s S-300s without losing any fighter jets and that Turkey is presently exploring a feasible way to dispense with its unused S-400s<\/a> to regain entry into the F-35 program.<\/p>\n Despite its emotional response to the violations of January 2020, Iraq\u2019s renewed bid for S-300s or S-400s ultimately went nowhere. Today, it remains to be seen whether its \u201ctop priority\u201d for modernizing its air defenses will achieve anything tangible in the months and years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cheongung surface-to-air missile system is on display during the Seoul International Aerospace and Defense Exhibition (ADEX 2025)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[14],"tags":[30595,379,34,94,44904,4506,1497,65560,58971],"class_list":["post-231530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iraq","tag-cheongung-ii","tag-houthis","tag-iran","tag-iraq","tag-korkut","tag-popular-mobilization-forces","tag-qassem-soleimani","tag-s-300","tag-s-400"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117020016374974601","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}