Recent commentary portrays Faiq Zaidan, head of Iraq’s judicial authority, as Iraq’s kingmaker, a figure capable of steering the country toward a post-militia future and breaking Tehran’s grip if Washington and Gulf Arab states support him.
Journalist Ali Mahmoud portrays Zaidan as indispensable, consulted by both U.S. Special Envoy Tom Barrack and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders.
That narrative is not only misleading; it also risks lulling U.S. decision-makers into blindness. Zaidan is not a pragmatic broker ready to pivot toward state sovereignty. Instead, he is a central pillar of the hybrid system that has entrenched Iranian influence, militia dominance, and endemic corruption since 2003, and a sophisticated product—and sustainer—of the dysfunction Washington seeks to disrupt. To continue engaging Zaidan risks repeating a decades-long American pattern: anointing embedded insiders as reformers, only to watch those networks further consolidate power.
Zaidan rose within Iraq’s current ecosystem and helped sustain its fragile sectarian balance, profiting from its opacity.
Mahmoud correctly diagnoses Iraq’s hybrid reality—fragmented institutions layered over powerful armed and political networks operating outside state control. Yet he prescribes the wrong remedy. U.S. policy has faltered by treating system insiders as potential reformers. Zaidan rose within Iraq’s current ecosystem and helped sustain its fragile sectarian balance, profiting from its opacity. Expecting Zaidan to dismantle the militias and corruption networks is likely wishful thinking.
Within Iraq’s power-sharing political system, judiciary function as a mechanism for competition and settling political scores. Zaidan’s influence is real. Since at least 2018, his role in judicial interpretation and political arbitration has placed him at junctures of decision-making, including moments of government formation and political eliminations of opponents of the powerful incumbent. Yet the outcomes have consistently favored continuity over rupture.
Far from confronting armed factions, Zaidan has benefited from their patronage. He has indicated that the militias protected the judiciary during protests, upon late Qods Force chief Qassem Soleimani’s orders. When Congressman Michael Waltz identified Zaidan as central to Iran’s client-state project in 2024, designated terrorist groups, including Kata’ib Hezbollah, and others rushed to Zaidan’s defense. Such statements are open to interpretation, but they are not the actions of groups fearing a strongman who might sideline them. They are the reflexes of allies protecting a key enabler. Zaidan has repeatedly condoned militia crimes, including attacks on U.S. forces and regional neighbors; selectively released Kata’ib Hezbollah operatives involved in rocket attacks while punishing the law enforcement officers who arrested them; and shielded judges—like Ali Jaffal, whom Ismael Alwaily, the brother of the former governor of Basra, accuses of enabling corruption and militia agendas.
Zaidan’s post-Ali Khamenei death, post-U.S. strikes rhetoric that criminalizes militia attacks appears less like an ideological break and more like opportunism. Iraqi political actors have long adjusted their language in response to shifting external pressures. With Iranian influence unsettled amid uncertainty over the Islamic Republic’s destiny and mounting U.S. pressure, Zaidan maneuvers to preserve his position.
Washington should not outsource its Iraq strategy to unaccountable judicial brokers or wait for organic patriotic reform within a system designed to resist it.
Zaidan is a political survivor, but the facts remain: Soleimani shepherded his rise with the Iraqi judiciary. Zaidan’s proximity to and frequent meetings with militia leaders underscore how deeply these alliances run.
Rhetoric, however, is cheap. The real test is whether it translates into prosecutions, asset seizures, or structural reform. Zaidan’s record offers little reason to expect as much.
Washington should not outsource its Iraq strategy to unaccountable judicial brokers or wait for organic patriotic reform within a system designed to resist it. U.S. policy instead must hinge on verifiable actions: prosecuting militia leaders, dismantling corruption and illicit networks fueling Iran through asset seizures, and pursuing genuine judicial politicization reforms.
Since 2004, political actors have politicized Iraq’s information space to manufacture artificial consent. Partisan analysts extend narratives beyond Iraq, repackaging them for international outlets to mislead policymakers and rehabilitate figures. To present Zaidan—who is a symptom of Iraq’s entrenched dysfunction—as a pivot for systemic change by eliding his alliances, rulings, and omissions, is not the cure. Nor will anointing another figure within a decades-long system shaped by Khamenei’s influence secure Iraq’s future and America’s interests.
American policy must judge actors by deeds, not declarations. After all, it was Zaidan who once described Soleimani as “a brother from another mother.” Betting on the wrong horse will only deepen the crises Washington seeks to resolve.
