#iraq-politics

#iraq-politics

President Donald Trump has threatened that the United States will end support for Iraq if Nouri al-Maliki, a former prime minister with ties to the US's longstanding foe Iran, is reinstated to the post. Trump, in his latest intervention in another country's politics, said on Tuesday that Iraq would be making a very bad choice with al-Maliki, who just days previously was nominated by the Coordination Framework, the largest Shia bloc in parliament, as its candidate.

By backing al-Maliki, Washington paved the way for the chaos and instability it sought to avert. During his first two terms, al-Maliki established a governance template that deliberately dismantled the post-2003 settlement's vision of inclusive politics. He pursued policies of deliberate exclusion of the Sunni population on the political and social levels under the guise of de-Baathification. While originally intended to remove Saddam Hussein's loyalists, the process was weaponised by al-Maliki as a sectarian tool.