{"id":233834,"date":"2026-08-03T11:13:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T11:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/233834\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T11:13:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T11:13:19","slug":"anti-corruption-drives-in-lebanon-and-iraq-reach-the-powerful-but-reform-is-a-long-road-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/233834\/","title":{"rendered":"Anti-corruption drives in Lebanon and Iraq reach the powerful, but reform is a long road ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lebanon and Iraq are each pushing anti-corruption drives against elites previously thought beyond reach. Lebanese authorities rearrested<\/a> former Banque du Liban (BDL) Governor Riad Salameh at a hospital north of Beirut on Saturday, after he skipped a court appearance on an unverifiable medical excuse. Days earlier, an Iraqi court recovered<\/a> IAD 20 bn (c. USD 15 mn) in a corruption case \u2014 the latest seizure in a nationwide sweep that has, unusually, pulled in sitting MPs and senior officials across the political spectrum.<\/p>\n

In Lebanon, the pursuit is climbing the banking establishment. Salameh ran BDL for 30 years and faces investigations at home and abroad for embezzlement and money laundering. He was arrested<\/a> once before, in 2025, and released on USD 14 mn bail over charges he embezzled at least USD 42 mn from the central bank, and is also facing cross-border prosecution, in which French prosecutors separately allege USD hundreds of mns were diverted from the banking system through Forry Associates, an offshore firm controlled by Salameh\u2019s brother. The net has since widened past Salameh to private-banking executives and board members at Bank Audi and BankMed, whom BDL accuses<\/a> of playing part in several embezzlement schemes that fed the country\u2019s 2019 banking collapse<\/a> \u2014 the crisis that froze depositors out of their savings.<\/p>\n

In Iraq, the sweep is broad and fresh. Prime Minister Ali Al Zaidi, in office only since May<\/a>, has made anti-corruption his signature policy priority. The campaign reaches across ministries, government contracts, and the political elite \u2014 the June arrest of at least 47 officials<\/a> among them.<\/p>\n

Both drives are positive signals for commercially-driven foreign capital, but arrests aren\u2019t reform \u2014 and far-reaching reform across sectors is what both nations need to de-risk the environment for foreign investors. Lebanon\u2019s test is whether it follows the prosecutions with a real restructuring of its banking sector, the thing investors have been waiting on<\/a> since 2019. And for Iraq, it\u2019s about whether Al Zaidi can convert that headline-grabbing sweep into regulatory and governance reform and hold the line against the armed factions and outside powers that have stalled prior attempts.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lebanon and Iraq are each pushing anti-corruption drives against elites previously thought beyond reach. Lebanese authorities rearrested former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[32],"tags":[19355,147,94,93,14963,8741],"class_list":["post-233834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lebanon","tag-banking","tag-economy","tag-iraq","tag-lebanon","tag-macroeconomics","tag-policy"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117031286121469975","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}