The Head of the Department of History at the College of Education for Women, Prof. Dr. Abdullah Hamid al-Attabi, has recently published a scientific article entitled (Soft Power and 25th Arabian Gulf Cup) in the Iraqi newspaper (Al-Sabah). He talked about the soft power that is in politics can be defined simply as a group of the capabilities used by states and governments to avoid the use of hard power such as armies, sanctions, blockades, and others to settle disputes, activate the principle of sovereignty, or prevent crises.
Soft power is the opposite of hard power or hard power, and it is based on non-material means such as language and culture in its comprehensive concept of arts, sports, education and traditions, in addition to diplomacy, mediation and arbitration through organizing exhibitions, seminars and other events through which the countries try to form symbolic defensive lines that secures its sovereignty and wealth and takes it out of the sphere of affected to the sphere of the actor through wars, for example, that are one of the failures of the means of soft power in preventing collision and its catastrophic results.
Dr. Abdullah Hamid al-Attabi stated that Basra has hosted the 25th Arabian Gulf Cup as a tool to confirm the soft power of Iraq at the Gulf level where Iraq has provided a model to follow, through the unprecedented wonderful organization of the tournament by attracting the people of the Arabian Gulf in Basra in line with the general policy of the new Iraq, which pursued peace, security, respect for geographical proximity and human solidarity as a basic rule. So Iraq, through the 25th Arabian Gulf Cup, has stressed that the country’s identity and Arab and Islamic values are not subject to negotiation or concession.