Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani has been a consequential prime minister. Whereas Ayad Allawi, Ibrahim Jaafari, Nouri al-Maliki, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, and Mustafa al-Kadhimi did little to develop Iraq during their tenures, Sudani joins Haider Abadi as perhaps the only prime minister to have done so. Improvements under Sudani’s tenure are even more visible, as he built upon a base of reforms that the technocratic Abadi laid. For those whose experience with Iraq rests in the early years of the 2003 war, Baghdad, Fallujah, and Ramadi would be unrecognizable: Blast walls and the green zone are gone. Commerce flourishes. New high-rises and luxury housing developments punctuate the skyline, and traffic flows smoothly over new bridges, overpasses, and elevated highways.
Iran-backed militias still retain outsized influence within Iraqi government circles.
Still, there are two reforms Sudani has not fulfilled. Corruption remains rife. Sudani has apparently outsourced business to his brother Abbas, much like Maliki relied on his son Ahmad. Second, Iran-backed militias still retain outsized influence within Iraqi government circles. Sudani has continued his predecessors’ tendency to buy quiet by giving militias a free pass.
Sudani now may be promising Washington cooperation through private diplomatic channels and the lobbying firm friendly to President Donald Trump that Baghdad retained in 2024, but no amount of spin can supplant reality.
On March 14, 2026, a missile struck a helipad within the U.S Embassy compound in Baghdad. Three days later, Iranian-backed Iraqi militias launched multiple drones and rockets at the embassy. Only one week after that, Sudani, perhaps fearful of Iran and seeking to ingratiate himself with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, declared that the Iranian-backed Iraqi militias should respond to any attacks on their headquarters. In effect, Sudani showed his true self: He neglected his responsibility to protect diplomatic property attacked by militias his government financed and then urged those same militias to fight against the United States if the U.S. military responded to their attacks. This is the major reason why the Trump White House largely finds a second Sudani term unacceptable.
Now, through his lobbyists, Sudani seeks to erase his actions. In an April 17, 2026, Newsweek column, he declares, “Baghdad is ready for a new chapter with Washington.” He writes: “The Popular Mobilization Forces emerged in response to the threat of the Islamic State group (ISIS), and many Iraqis associate them with real sacrifice in a moment of national peril.” Perhaps Sudani believes that Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are fools.
That Sudani has the audacity to lie to Trump should end any question of renewed support.
While Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a 2014 cross-sectarian call for Iraqis to fight the Islamic State, those groups that Tehran controls predate this fatwa—Hadi Al-Ameri’s Badr Organization, for example, formed by Iranian intelligence in 1982 as a fifth column to fight against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein against the backdrop of the Iran-Iraq War. Iran’s Qods Force founded Kata’ib Hezbollah in 2006 to target Americans. Qais al-Khazali formed ‘Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq the same year and for the same purpose.
In effect, Sudani now seeks to help launder those groups formed by Iran by allowing them to claim legitimacy from Sistani when they enjoy no such thing. Rather, the groups Sudani today defends are parasites upon the Iraqi economy and the country’s sovereignty. That Sudani has the audacity to lie to Trump should end any question of renewed support, for only a fool would trust the promises of as man who has repeatedly shown his word to be empty.
