The US administration appears to have great expectations for Iraq’s new prime minister, Ali Falah al-Zaidi. But the expectations need to be tempered.
After months of deadlock following the November 2025 elections, Iraq’s parliament approved a new government under Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi on May 14, 2026 — just as the country has become a battleground in the US-Israel-Iran war. Zaidi inherits a daunting brief: reviving a struggling economy, reining in armed factions, and steering Iraq through a perilous regional landscape. Dr. Renad Mansour, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme and director of the Iraq Initiative at Chatham House, joins host Alistair Taylor to discuss the war’s impact on Iraq — from Iran’s militia networks to the surge of attacks on the Kurdistan region — and how it’s reshaping Baghdad’s ties with Tehran and Washington.
Hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj are joined by MEI Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow Amb. (ret.) Robert S. Ford to examine what is at stake for Iraq in the Iran war. The only country to have been hit by both sides, Iraq is caught in the middle of a regional conflict, with the local Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) carrying out attacks on American interests and personnel — and the US responding. This escalation comes at a period of internal political transition in Iraq, which has been locked in negotiations to form a new government since the November 2025 elections. Ford, who served as Deputy and later Acting Ambassador in Baghdad from 2008 until 2010, unpacks how Iraq is navigating the current moment, how the Kurdistan region fits into this equation, and what this all means for the future of US-Iraqi relations.
Regional Cooperation Series
This Policy Paper is part of The Middle East Institute’s Regional Cooperation Series. Throughout 2016, MEI will be releasing several policy papers by renowned scholars and experts exploring possibilities to foster regional cooperation across an array of sectors. The purpose is to highlight the myriad benefits and opportunities associated with regional cooperation, and the high costs of the continued business-as-usual model of competition and intense rivalry.
Summary
This paper is part of a MEI scholar series titled “The Middle East and the 2016 Presidential Elections.”
Philip Gordon, a former Middle East policy adviser in the White House, likes to say that President Barack Obama learned three lessons from the region’s unending turmoil.
Iraq is enduring a dangerous political crisis. Its substance, however, is under dispute. For many, it is a valiant attempt at reform, and at fulfilling the long overdue promise of sound governance, against a system brought to a halt by corruption and dysfunction. For others, it is a questionable maneuver to restore autocracy, and to unravel the checks and balances that have been instituted over more than a decade. The truth, however, is not somewhere in between, irrespective of the many smokescreens that the opponents of reform may raise.
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Hassan Mneimneh, Robert S. Ford, and Mabrouka M’Barek provide analysis on recent events including Iraq’s political storm, efforts to salvage the Syrian cease-fire, and the first Tunisia-U.S. Joint Economic Commission meeting starting later this week.
Iraqi PM Needs Support
Hassan Mneimneh, MEI Scholar
Recent additions to America’s fighting contingent in Iraq and Syria show U.S. determination to beat ISIS militarily. President Barack Obama announced Monday that 250 more U.S. special forces will enter Syria to help anti-ISIS fighters, and Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said last week that Apache helicopters and more special operations forces will be sent to Iraq.
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Paul Salem, Jean-François Seznec, and Robert Ford provide analysis on recent events including President Obama’s final GCC summit, the Doha oil summit, and protests over Iraq’s cabinet turmoil.
Obama’s Thursday G.C.C. Summit
Paul Salem, Vice President for Policy and Research
When the Mongols invaded Baghdad in 1258, they laid siege to the city’s libraries, including the famed House of Wisdom—the largest in the world at the time.
A center for Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scholars, the destruction of the library remains one of the most famous examples of cultural loss during wartime.
Nine centuries later, Iraqi-American artist Wafaa Bilal has taken the fate of the House of Wisdom as a starting point for a cultural project aimed at rebuilding the library of the Baghdad College of Fine Arts, destroyed in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion.
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Gonul Tol, Robert S. Ford, Charles Lister, and Paul Salem provide analysis on recent events including Turkish President Erdogan’s visit to Washington, the reshuffling of Iraq’s cabinet, King Salman’s forthcoming visit to Egypt, and the latest attempts by Jabhat al-Nusra over the weekend to disrupt the Syrian political process.
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Charles Lister, Paul Salem, and Daniel Serwer provide analysis on recent events including the capture of Palmyra by Syrian government forces, preparations for the campaign to retake Mosul, the risk of further terrorist attacks in Europe like last week’s in Brussels. Allen Keiswetter also responds to recent comments by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on U.S. policy toward Saudi Arabia.
This article was originally published on NPR.
The Islamic State has been steadily losing territory in its self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq, where a U.S. bombing campaign and a host of rival forces chip away at its holdings.
This article is the result of a recent visit by the authors to Baghdad where they met with government leaders, security officials, political party representatives from the various communities, and leaders of ten Iraqi think tanks. A version of this article appeared in the March 10 issue of the Arabic Al-Hayat newspaper.
Despite deep internal divisions, a massive security threat from ISIS, and a fiscal collapse due to low oil prices, the Iraqi government is struggling to move the country forward and deserves urgent support from international and regional players.
Summary
Amb. Robert Ford delivered the following prepared remarks at a hearing of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee on January 12, 2016. Click here to watch C-SPAN’s coverage of the hearing.
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee,
It is an honor to be on this distinguished panel. Thank you for inviting me.
The oldest peer-reviewed publication dedicated to the study of the modern Middle East, MEI’s flagship journal covers politics, society, and culture in the region.
