Elections in Iraq are real. It is perhaps the only Arab country where no one—politicians and ordinary citizens alike—has any idea who the new prime minister will be when they head to the polls. Selecting the head of government, though, is a process involving months of negotiations among Iraq’s political parties and their often-unelected doyens.
It has been almost six months since the Coordination Framework, the Shi‘i political grouping and largest vote-getter, named Ali al-Zaidi as its “consensus candidate,” after an impasse among factions backing better-known candidates. President Nizar Amidi designated him that evening, just ahead of the constitutional deadline.
It has been almost six months since the Coordination Framework, the Shi‘i political grouping and largest vote-getter, named Ali al-Zaidi as its “consensus candidate.”
Al-Zaidi was just 16 when U.S. forces unleashed “shock and awe” on Baghdad and ended Saddam Hussein’s quarter-century rule. Fifty-two percent of Iraqis were born after Saddam’s fall and many others, like al-Zaidi, came of age under the new system. Al-Zaidi was clever, built political contacts, maneuvered well, and played the patronage game. Iraq remains among the world’s most corrupt countries, despite recent improvements.
Just as some Sunni Arab businessmen got rich under Saddam and many Kurdish businessmen owe their livelihoods and contracts to Kurdistan Democratic Party leader Masoud Barzani’s patronage, al-Zaidi was among the most successful of the Shi‘i nouveaux riche.
He was the owner and boss of the Al-Oweis Group, a conglomerate of 15 companies, and the contractor for the program to supply food to the state’s ration-card system and food-services to the Iraqi military. Many members of parliament accused it and the Al-Janoob Islamic Bank, which he founded in 2016, of corruption. He was also chairman of Al-Watania, the National Holding Company founded in 2017, with interests in agriculture, real estate, banking, information technology, media, logistics, and solar energy, and he had other interests in Taawon hypermarkets and oil services. He chaired the boards of Al-Shaab University and Ishtar Medical Institute.
The theory behind al-Zaidi’s appointment was he could bring a fresh face and more practical approach to Iraqi politics. The White House supported him for two reasons: First, he was not Nouri al-Maliki, the corrupt and sectarian former prime minister who repeatedly sold Iraqi sovereignty for personal profit to Iran; and second, al-Zaidi promised to get serious about disarming Iranian-backed militias. It was a commitment al-Zaidi repeated in his White House press conference with President Donald Trump: “There is not any need for the presence of any faction. … We never accept for any entity to carry weapons outside the control of the state.”
It was wishful thinking. Al-Zaidi may have been former Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani’s pick in the Coordination Framework’s caucus, but al-Zaidi owed both his political rise and his fortune to Maliki. Like his predecessors, al-Zaidi told the U.S. president what he wanted to hear, and then did the opposite. Trump’s Memorandum of Understanding with Iran also relieved pressure on al-Zaidi and convinced Maliki and other pro-Iran proxy leaders like Hadi al-Amiri, Qais al-Khazali, and Qubad Talabani that they could outlast American pressure.
Al-Zaidi not only has resisted his promises to rein in the Badr Corps, Kataib Hezbollah, and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, but his office increasingly has sought to aid new Iranian inroads.
Yusuf Khalaf Yusuf, chairman of the Advisory Commission and al-Zaidi’s representative at the Internet Governance Forum Iraq, for example, has moved to cancel contracts awarded to Supercell, Enkidu, and TeleCore, who together are building Iraq’s only communications network not compromised by Chinese components or Iranian commercial proxies like ScopeSky or EarthLink Telecommunications (no relation to the American company EarthLink LLC).
The danger is not just al-Zaidi’s ineffectiveness or deliberate deceit, nor is it only increasing Iranian influence in Baghdad. Al-Zaidi’s willingness to prostitute himself to Maliki now endangers all of Iraq.
In summer 2018, demonstrations erupted in Basra after contaminated water sent 100,000 people to the hospital and sickened thousands more. While many Americans caricature Shi‘a as Iranian proxies, many Iraqi Shi‘a despise Iran. Protests culminated in the burning of the Iranian consulate.
In October 2018, Adel Abdul Mahdi emerged as prime minister, five months after elections. Abdul Mahdi was a familiar face—he was 76 and had served as minister of oil, minister of finance, and vice president. Because he was the consummate insider, Iraqis did not offer him much of a honeymoon period.
Iraq has an educated population, but its universities produce more graduates than the state and private sector can provide meaningful jobs. In September 2019, unemployed graduates staged sit-ins, which security forces countered with water cannons. Abdul Mahdi then fired a popular anti-Islamic State commander, Lt. Gen. Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi. Outrage reached the boiling point and, on October 1, young Shi‘a staged marches in Baghdad and across southern Iraq under the slogan “Nurid watan” (“We want a homeland”). It rejected the establishment Shi‘i religious parties as corrupt and the broader political system as disenfranchising, as party-boss horse trading trumped popular will. The movement became known as Tishreen, after the Iraqi and Levantine Arabic word for October.
If a new Tishreen movement erupts, the protestors will target the entire establishment, potentially risking Iraq’s collapse and the intervention of neighboring states.
The response was brutal. Pro-Iran security forces fired live ammunition into crowds and Abdul Mahdi shut down the internet. Militias kidnapped activists. Iranian Qods Force Chief Qassem Soleimani reportedly flew to Baghdad to help coordinate the crackdown. Protesters attacked Iranian consulates in Karbala and Najaf. On November 28, security forces gunned down several dozen protesters in Nasiriyah. The next day, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s Friday sermon urged parliament to reconsider its support for the government, and Abdul Mahdi announced his resignation, though he stayed on until May 2020, when former civil society activist-turned-intelligence chief Mustafa al-Kadhimi took office.
Al-Kadhimi disappointed activists. He was uncharismatic, his office was corrupt, and he granted Iran access in exchange for quiet. He oversaw little reform. By prioritizing Maliki over the masses, al-Zaidi is likewise disappointing Iraqis. The danger is that, having accepted the promise of reform once, Iraqi protestors will not be fooled again. If a new Tishreen movement erupts, the protestors will target the entire establishment, potentially risking Iraq’s collapse and the intervention of neighboring states.
Essentially, it will be a firestorm. The question now is whether Trump will sit by while al-Zaidi lies to him and profits off the sale of gasoline to the arsonists.
