Shafaq News<\/p>\n
Every Iraqi
\ngovernment since 2003 has arrived with a program containing the same
\ncommitments: weapons under state control, anti-corruption measures, electricity
\nreform, banking restructuring, agricultural development, reduced oil
\ndependence, improved education, and neutrality between regional axes. Every
\nprogram has produced the same outcome, not failure exactly, but continuation,
\nwith the files remaining open, the crises recurring, and the next government
\ninheriting the same document with updated formatting.<\/p>\n
Ali al-Zaidi
\nwas chosen because he was a political outsider with no bloc, no constituency,
\nand no independent power base. That is the first reason his program will
\nstruggle: the forces most capable of blocking reform are the forces that
\nselected him, and they did not select him to confront them.<\/p>\n
Al-Zaidi,
\nsworn in on May 14, 2026, submitted his ministerial program built around
\n“a stable state, a productive economy, and balanced partnerships.” A
\ncomparison of his 14-point platform with those of his two predecessors \u2014Mohammed
\nShia al-Sudani and Mustafa al-Kadhimi\u2014 found that the vast majority of its core
\ncommitments appeared verbatim in one or both previous programs without having
\nbeen resolved. <\/p>\n
The problem
\nnow is whether the conditions under which he operates give him any more room
\nthan the men who wrote the same sentences before him.<\/p>\n
Read more: Ali al-Zaidi named Iraq’s prime minister: Easy nomination, harder road ahead<\/a><\/p>\n Built to Be Al-Zaidi He was A political Read more: Who is Ali Al-Zaidi? The businessman tapped for Iraq’s premiership<\/a><\/p>\n That His business Guns Nobody No Read more: Iraq\u2019s PMF Law: A battle for state control<\/a><\/p>\n A source who Al-Maliki, Factions Al-Zaidi Read more: Iraq\u2019s armed factions, state authority, and the battle over disarmament<\/a><\/p>\n Washington, The Washington’s Tehran’s The That Read more: Two powers, one grid: The geopolitical siege of Iraq\u2019s economy<\/a><\/p>\n Washington’s Thirty-five Al-Sudani’s Read more: Sovereignty strain: US sanctions trigger Iraq’s liquidity nightmare<\/a><\/p>\n Anti-Corruption, Iraq ranked Al-Zaidi’s Read more: Failure or feat? A bold assessment of PM Al-Sudani’s tenure<\/a><\/p>\n Where the The Iraq now Read more: Iraq power 2026: war on Iran collapses the grid’s last defenses ahead of peak summer<\/a><\/p>\n The same
\nManaged<\/p>\n
\nbuilt his career almost entirely outside elected government, born in Dhi Qar
\nprovince in 1986, holding degrees in law and finance, with his professional
\nlife unfolding overwhelmingly in the private sector. His designation came after
\na meeting at the residence of Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) leader Falih
\nal-Fayyad, agreed upon by both former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and
\ncaretaker Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani to break a deadlock after
\nWashington threatened to withhold Iraq’s access to the petrodollar over
\nal-Maliki’s candidacy.<\/p>\n
\nselected, according to sources familiar with the negotiations, because he had
\nno political bloc, meaning none of the eight leading Shiite Coordination
\nFramework chiefs needed to fear he would use the premiership to eclipse them. <\/p>\n
\nsource told Shafaq News that the system chose al-Zaidi for the same reason it
\nchose his predecessors: because a man with no independent power base “is
\neasier to manage than one who arrives with a mandate.”<\/p>\n
\ncalculation carries a precedent the Coordination Framework may not have fully
\npriced in. Three of those same chiefs \u2014al-Maliki, Haidar al-Abadi, and
\nal-Sudani\u2014 were also once chosen as manageable outsiders and used the
\npremiership to build parliamentary blocs they still deploy today. Whether
\nal-Zaidi follows that pattern or is genuinely contained by it is the question
\nhis government cannot yet answer.<\/p>\n
\nbackground introduces a more immediate complication. Al-Zaidi previously served
\nas chairman of Al-Janoob Islamic Bank, which was sanctioned by the United
\nStates in 2024 over alleged money laundering on behalf of Iran and
\nIranian-backed Iraqi Shiite armed groups. While al-Zaidi is not himself under
\nsanctions, the designation placed an institution he once led at the center of
\nthe precise tension he must now navigate as head of government: Washington
\ndemands banking compliance and PMF reform; the PMF-aligned coalition that
\nselected him depends on the financial architecture those demands are designed
\nto dismantle. That is a structural contradiction at its core.<\/p>\n
\nWill Hand Over<\/p>\n
\ncommitment is more central or more predictably contested than the monopoly of
\narms, and every government since 2003 has made it without achieving it, because
\nthe armed factions that would need to disarm are participants in the political
\nsystem, not adversaries of it.<\/p>\n
\nrequested anonymity told Shafaq News that Iraq has 34 armed groups, most
\nalready part of the PMF, whose members largely answer to Iran rather than the
\nprime minister, with the leader of one group stating he would overthrow the
\nIraqi government if Iran’s supreme leader requested it. <\/p>\n
\none of al-Zaidi’s kingmakers, described talk of dissolving or merging the PMF
\nas “rumor<\/a>,” insisting any development should preserve its strength.
\nThe Stimson Center has argued the opposite, that ambiguities around command
\nhierarchy, budgetary oversight, and integration into the national security
\nframework have become persistent sources of tension, and that without reform,
\nthe PMF risks accruing excessive independent power.<\/p>\n
\ninsist any handover would be to the PMF itself, arguing it is a state
\ninstitution because parliament legalized it. But the PMF is an umbrella
\ndominated by the same groups claiming compliance, many of which retain their
\nown chains of command, intelligence units, economic networks, and external
\nloyalties. “Moving weapons from factions to an institution they themselves
\ncontrol is not disarmament. It is rebranding.”<\/p>\n
\nenters this debate with no independent security constituency, no parliamentary
\nbloc, and a cabinet that could not agree on a defense minister.<\/p>\n
\nTehran, and the Squeeze<\/p>\n
\ngeopolitical pressure on al-Zaidi’s government is also structural, and its two
\npoles pull in opposite directions.<\/p>\n
\ndemands are specific: PMF reform, banking compliance, and continued cooperation
\non dollar-transfer mechanisms to prevent currency from reaching sanctioned
\nentities in Tehran. The US-Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz
\nhave sharpened that agenda considerably. For Washington, al-Zaidi’s Al-Janoob
\nBank history is a data point in an active sanctions enforcement posture, and
\nhis government will need to demonstrate credible separation from that history
\nto access the financial cooperation Iraq’s dollar-dependent economy requires.<\/p>\n
\ninterests point in the opposite direction. The PMF’s financial and operational
\nindependence is part of Iran’s regional influence framework, and any prime
\nminister who genuinely reforms the PMF or the banking channels that sustain it
\nthreatens a network Iran has spent two decades building in Iraq. <\/p>\n
\ncoalition that selected al-Zaidi is substantially composed of forces that
\nanswer, at varying degrees of remove, to Tehran. He cannot reform that
\ncoalition without confronting its external patron, and he cannot confront its
\nexternal patron without losing the political ground he was given.<\/p>\n
\ntriangle \u2014Washington demanding compliance, Tehran requiring preservation, and
\nal-Zaidi holding office at the intersection\u2014 is the operative constraint
\nbeneath every commitment in his program.<\/p>\n
\nBlacklist<\/p>\n
\nIraqi banks were effectively cut off from international dollar transactions in
\nFebruary 2024 following a Central Bank decision prohibiting them from opening
\ndollar accounts or conducting international transfers, after a visit from a
\nsenior US Treasury official aimed at cutting currency smuggling to Tehran.
\nIraq’s private banking sector grew rapidly after 2003 by exploiting the Central
\nBank’s currency auction system, where access to official exchange rate dollars
\ncreated profit opportunities that some banks channeled toward sanctioned
\nentities, particularly in Iran.<\/p>\n
\ngovernment cooperated with American institutions to restructure state banks,
\nbut the project froze under sanctions pressure and inadequate capital. Al-Zaidi
\ninherits a sector where a significant fraction of private institutions cannot
\nconduct international transactions, and where his prior chairmanship of a
\nsanctioned bank makes his credibility as a reformer directly vulnerable to the
\ninstitutions he most needs to reform.<\/p>\n
\nAgain<\/p>\n
\n140th globally in the 2024 Corruption<\/a> Perceptions Index with a score of 26 out
\nof 100. The 2025 index showed marginal improvement: 136th out of 182 countries
\nwith a score of 28, still well below the global average of 43. The trajectory
\nis real but narrow. Iraq moved 32 places in seven years, while President Barham
\nSalih estimated in 2021 that $150 billion in oil revenues had been stolen and
\nsmuggled since the 2003 invasion, in an economy that remains predominantly
\ncash-based and makes money flows almost impossible to trace.<\/p>\n
\nprogram names anti-corruption as a priority without specifying what makes this
\niteration different. The structural reason previous efforts produced limited
\nresults is the political economy: the patronage networks that sustain the Shiite
\nCoordination Framework, the National Sunni Council, and the Kurdish forces are
\nthe same networks any credible investigation would need to penetrate. A
\ngovernment assembled by those networks cannot simultaneously dismantle them
\nwithout dismantling the coalition that sustains it.<\/p>\n
\nMoney Runs Out<\/p>\n
\nelectricity crisis has been declared solvable by every Iraqi prime minister
\nsince 2003. The US-Iran war made a chronic problem acute: strikes on Iran’s
\nSouth Pars gas field in early 2026 knocked more than 3,000 megawatts off the
\nnational grid almost overnight. <\/p>\n
\nfaces peak summer demand of roughly 40 gigawatts against its current production
\nof approximately 29 gigawatts. The more revealing figure is fiscal: the federal
\ngovernment recovers only 0.17% of total electricity revenue \u2014approximately
\n$763,000 per month \u2014covering almost none of its operational costs. A ministry
\nthat cannot recover its running costs cannot invest in the grid. A grid that
\ncannot be invested in cannot close a gap that two decades of deferred
\ncommitment have widened to the point where blackouts of up to 12 hours a day
\nwere already triggering street protests before the war began.<\/p>\n
\nfiscal logic runs through agriculture and education. Provincial cultivation
\nquotas have been cut by more than 60% in recent seasons due to drought, while
\nthe modern irrigation technology that previous programs promised remains
\nlargely unimplemented in a country bisected by the Tigris and Euphrates that
\ncontinues to rely on flood irrigation.<\/p>\n