import iris

address = os.environ['IRIS_HOST']
port = int(os.environ['IRIS_PORT'])
namespace = os.environ['IRIS_NAMESP']
username = os.environ['IRIS_USER']
password = os.environ['IRIS_PASSWD']
# TODO: change to %SYS namespace programmaticly, save the original
# namespace and revert when done
namespace = "%SYS"
connection_string = f"{address}:{port}/{namespace}"
logging.info(f"connecting to: {connection_string}")
connection = iris.connect(connection_string, username, password)
logging.debug(f"{connection}")
cursor = connection.cursor()

Im not using embedded python, but a script using the intersystems-irispython module. So the iris object has no method `execute()`

This is great, thank you.