There is a familiar analytical noise that rises with every new government in Iraq, a noise that feels like replaying an old recording at a higher volume, nothing more. What is happening today with Ali al-Zaidi’s government is no exception; it is a pale repetition of what we saw with Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, and with those before him, and with those who will follow, so long as every prime minister is born from the same equation and bound by the same conditions that have governed the political process since 2003.
All this noise manufactured on television screens—by commentators who hang their university degrees on the wall behind them—does not produce a single fruitful paragraph capable of convincing Iraqis that anything real is changing. Because what is required, at its core, is not understanding but justification; not critique, but the conferral of political legitimacy on state thieves and on a sectarian party–militia class that believes Iraq has become the private property of the sect, and that the concept of a nation is no longer usable after they succeeded in dividing Iraqis against themselves.
Iraq today, when it wants to define itself, does not say: I am Iraqi. It says: I am Shia, Sunni, loyal to this party or that leader. This is not a passing identity crisis; it is the greatest moral collapse Iraq has lived through in its modern history.
In the midst of this collapse, we are asked to believe that Ali al-Zaidi can be the “political solution” who will return Iraq to the Iraqis, rescue it from militias and uncontrolled weapons, recover stolen funds, and put an end to political and financial corruption. What kind of illusion is this, and what fantasy do they want us to inhabit?
What truly delights that ruling class is not reform, but the debate about reform. It thrives on this heated media and popular argument that grows more hollow with every exclusion, every show trial, every theatrical election. The higher the volume of the debate, the more entrenched their fake legitimacy becomes. They climb out of the swamp, wipe the mud from their faces, and say to the world: look, we are a democratic country where disagreement and debate are allowed!
Yet a single glance at Iraq’s position on global corruption indices, or at the latest Reporters Without Borders assessment of press freedom, is enough to see that we are trading in illusions the moment we trust that al-Zaidi is any kind of “solution”. Leave aside his political illiteracy and his glaring ignorance of how the world works; the problem is not in the man alone, but in the stage he has stepped onto, and in the script written for him in advance.
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We can see political failure laid bare simply by recalling what happened during the war with Iran and beyond, and how militias backed by Tehran crushed the very idea of the state under their boots, as they directed drones and missiles at targets inside Iraq and the Gulf according to Iranian instructions, while the government in the Green Zone claimed— with a brazenness rarely matched—that it was not a party to this war. What kind of state fires from its own soil, then swears it does not know who pulled the trigger?
This is what Nicholas Pelham, The Economist’s senior Middle East correspondent, calls a “gangster’s paradise”—a disgraceful counter-image to the “Land of the Two Rivers”. He writes about the ongoing farce in a country that was meant to become a “democratic oasis” in the region, only to turn into a fully fledged model of a spoils economy and gangster politics.
On paper, the scene looks reassuring: a Federal Integrity Commission, a Supreme Judicial Council, a parliamentary ethics committee, an electoral commission—institutions that are supposed to protect accountability and guarantee transparency. But these institutions, as Pelham describes them, are often used to destabilize society rather than protect it; to eliminate rivals rather than prosecute the corrupt; to beautify the face of the system, not to cleanse it.
In this context, betting on a “solution from within the political process” becomes either naivety or complicity. We cannot sympathize with those who lived comfortably inside the swamp of this process—however sincere some of their intentions may have been—and then, once they are pushed out or choose to flee, begin to reveal the theft and criminality they coexisted with, as if they have just discovered corruption. These facts have been obvious to Iraqis for years; they know them by instinct and experience. They do not need a latecomer at the banquet to certify what they already live.
Take Suha al-Najjar, for example, who worked at the National Investment Commission before resigning and fleeing. She says threats forced her to leave Iraq. She recounts how pro-Iran MPs would come to her office and openly threaten her with prison and death in front of employees. She also says: “Your life will be threatened anyway, so you have to be corrupt and make money. That’s why everyone is corrupt.”
But the question she does not answer is this: where did the trust that was granted to her originally come from, when she was working alongside state thieves in a cash-swollen commission, surrounded by dense networks of interests? What prevents her from being part of that oligarchic class while working among them and under their protection, even if she ultimately left with “clean hands”, as she claims? Why are we asked to sympathize with her resignation, but not asked to interrogate her earlier participation in a system she knows better than anyone is rotten to the core?
She is not the only example. Many have lived inside the swamp of the political process and, once they stepped out, wanted to condemn it without first condemning themselves.
The latest of them is former prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who has now confessed to the decay and political failure in Iraq as a living witness who promoted, supported, and participated in the political process since 2003. He wrote:
“The Iraqi predicament has never been obscure; it is embarrassingly clear, matched only by a chronic inability to decide. We are not living a crisis of understanding or approach, but a crisis of will. Unfortunately, the political elites have failed to answer a simple question in form and phrasing, but profound in its consequences: what do we want? To build a state, or to perpetuate power? The state—here—means monopolizing arms, the rule of law, and institutions that are not reduced to individuals. It also means a serious fight against corruption as the ‘red line’ that must not be crossed. What is actually happening, however, is the management of fragile balances, where mistakes are used instead of being corrected.”
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Despite their contradictions, these testimonies offer a truthful picture of what is happening in Iraq: a system that cannot be reformed from within, because the “inside” itself is part of the machinery of corruption. At this point, every attempt at “patchwork” or “gradual reform” dissolves, and talk of a “zero-sum equation” ceases to be theoretical luxury and becomes a condition for any real change: either a state, or no state; either one law, or an open jungle.
American journalist Robert Worth, who wrote one of the most important reports on corruption in Iraq for The New York Times, goes beyond blaming corrupt politicians. Failure, in his view, is not merely the product of individuals, but of “the political framework of this country”.
The system put in place during the American occupation—marketed as one that would enhance political competition and power-sharing—has in practice become a mechanism for dividing oil revenues through ministries among state thieves.
This framework, built on sectarian apportionment, consensus, and the division of spoils, does not produce a state; it produces an open market for loyalties. Ministries are not public service institutions, but small oil fields distributed among parties and militias. In such a system, any prime minister, whatever his intentions, becomes part of the game, not its breaker. Ali al-Zaidi, in this context, is not an exception but a continuation.
Worth does not absolve the United States of responsibility. Washington is not merely a witness to corruption; it is a partner in it. Its invasion destroyed the state, then left behind a fragile political system built on distributing power among competing factions, and fed by oil money flowing through the Federal Reserve in New York, where Iraq still receives billions of dollars annually in hard currency. Instead of building a state, this money is recycled through the same corrupt networks, under the gaze of the international community and with the tacit blessing of major powers that care more about the stability of the equation than the integrity of justice.
In light of all this, “Ali al-Zaidi and the Green Zone” is not just a provocative headline designed to attract readers; it is a condensed summary of a bitter truth: no political solution can be born from an equation originally designed to produce failure, and no prime minister can turn into a savior while he is bound by rules written by parties and militias and facilitated by foreign capitals. The illusion does not lie in al-Zaidi as a person alone, but in the very idea that the system can reform itself, that the swamp can wash itself with its own stagnant water.
Iraqis do not need more faces; they need to shatter the mirror that reproduces the same image every time. And if there is ever to be a genuine “political solution”, it will not come from the Green Zone, but from the moment Iraqis decide that this zone is not the heart of the state, but the heart of the illusion.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
