Published in the Jerusalem Post, 25 February 2026
Trump, typically riding roughshod
over accepted practice, was openly seeking to influence the election of Iraq’s
future prime minister. To whom was he offering
his advice?
Iraq’s constitution specifies that
following parliamentary elections, the parliament – known as the Council of
Representatives – elects the president of the republic. Within 15 days of his election, the president
appoints as prime minister‑designate the candidate nominated by the
parliamentary bloc with the largest number of seats. The prime minister‑designate then has 30 days
to propose a cabinet and present it to parliament. He becomes prime minister only if parliament
grants him and his government a vote of confidence.
Trump was therefore speaking
directly to the 329 parliamentarians elected to the Council of Representatives in
the poll held on November 11, and especially to the Shia parties which took
nearly 200 seats in those elections and form the majority bloc that will
nominate the prime minister-designate.
Since the elections were held in
November and the prime minister is not yet in post, the constitutional
timetable has clearly slipped. But the
blockage is further up the line. Parliament
has not yet been able to elect a president.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK) have repeatedly failed to agree on a consensus Kurdish candidate for the
presidency (a post traditionally held by a Kurd), and they have formally asked
for more time.
Assuming the logjam is eventually
cleared, Trump has warned Iraq’s parliamentarians that if Maliki were to be
elected prime minister the US will no longer help the nation, “and without our
support Iraq has zero chance of success, prosperity, or freedom.” US officials believe Maliki is too closely
aligned with the Iranian regime, and regard his possible return as an attempt
to bolster Iran’s Shiite Crescent in the Middle East.
Maliki and his allies have, of course, condemned Trump’s comments as unwarranted American interference in Iraq’s internal political process. Nouri al-Maliki was indeed proposed in January as candidate for prime minister by the Shia Coordination Framework and allied lists. His election is not a foregone conclusion, though. Some Shia figures (for example, leading Iraqi cleric and politician Ammar al‑Hakim) have not endorsed the nomination,
A return to power by Maliki would
not, on the evidence, augur well for Iraq.
From 2006 till 2014 he served two
four-year terms as Iraq’s prime minister. His performance over that period is
generally considered to have deeply damaged Iraq’s stability, institutions, and
social cohesion. His second tenure of
office, from 2010-2014, was especially marked by internal instability and increasing
authoritarianism. He began accumulating
power in his own hands. By personally
holding a number of key security and economic portfolios, he was able to evade
scrutiny. He was also widely criticized
for using the security forces and state institutions to support his political
allies, marginalizing and antagonizing many Sunni and some Kurdish groups.
His fall from power resulted from
his inability to combat the forces of ISIS and its allied militias as they
overran Iraqi army units and, as government forces withdrew in disarray, seize
control first of Fallujah and then of Nineveh and surrounding areas.
On June 10, 2014 Mosul, Iraq’s
second city, fell after large numbers of Iraqi troops abandoned their positions
– around 1,500 ISIS fighters routed an estimated 60,000 government soldiers and
police, leaving vast stocks of weapons and equipment in ISIS hands.
The same offensive saw ISIS and
allied insurgents seize Tikrit and other towns along the Tigris corridor, while
Iraq simultaneously lost control of border crossings with Syria and Jordan.
These catastrophic defeats at the
hands of ISIS were unsustainable politically, and on August 14, 2014 Maliki was
pressured to resign.
According to Iraqi and
international reports, his years in power saw politically sanctioned corruption
flourish. Human rights groups and policy
institutes link his period in office to dishonest practices such as ghost
soldiers on payrolls and fictitious contracts.
In a speech to the Iraqi
parliament reported on October 28, 2015 Iraq’s Commission of Integrity
spokesman Adil Nouri claimed that roughly half of reconstruction funds and a
similar share of oil revenues – some hundreds of billions of dollars – had, in
effect, been stolen. He said explicitly that
the money went missing “during the 8‑year period of office of former prime minister
Nouri Maliki,” noting that Iraq’s oil income “between 2006 and 2014 alone was
only 822 billion dollars.” The
presumption is that it should have been double that.
While Maliki initially pledged to
reconcile Sunnis and Shias, his later approach relied heavily on Shia‑dominated
security forces and militias, deepening Sunni grievances. His crackdown on Sunni protest movements in
2012–2013, and his dictatorial style, helped foster the unstable internal
situation that led to the collapse of Iraqi army units in 2014, enabling ISIS’s
rapid expansion.
Publicly Maliki emphasizes Iraqi sovereignty but, especially worrying in present circumstances, he maintains a very close relationship with the Iranian regime.
"Since leaving office," the trustworthy policy forum Chatham House notes, “Maliki has kept close relations with Iran”. Iran backed his return as a prime‑ministerial candidate in 2026, it says, because it sees him as a “trusted figure” who can impose order on Iraq’s fragmented security landscape. Moreover, Iraq “serves as a critical security buffer closely entwined with Iran’s own domestic stability.”
Given Maliki’s record in office,
his close Shiite connections, and his strong association with the Iranian
regime, Trump’s opposition to his return to power makes sense. Will Maliki succeed in out-maneuvering him?
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