Despite forming a new government, Iraq's political system is marked by dysfunction and corruption
Analysis. Elected on October 13 by the Iraqi parliament, Abdul Latif Rashid is Iraq's new president. Meanwhile, Shiite politician Mohammed Shia al-Sudani took over as the head of a new government on October 27. After more than a year of political stalemate between the parties who won the October 2021 parliamentary elections, which almost turned into an intra-Shiite war, the unblocking of governmental institutions is bringing back a semblance of normalcy.
Shiite populist leader Muqtada al-Sadr has stepped aside, acknowledging the failure of his "revolution against the system," and the status quo has finally been maintained with terms dictated by his rivals, the former prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki and pro-Iranian Shiite militia leaders, who have taken the lion's share of ministerial portfolios. A way out of the crisis seems to be a long way off for Iraq, while the political system in place since the US' 2003 invasion has proven to be a failure.
It did not take long for experts on Iraq to predict this strategic failure, given the many errors committed by the George W. Bush administration from the beginning of the occupation. The "regime change" advocated by Mr. Bush after 23 years of dictatorship by Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath party quickly turned into a fiasco. Disbanding the army, in the name of de-Ba'athification, provoked an armed insurrection against the Americans and the new leaders in Baghdad, and it also precipitated the rise in militias in the country. The transition to political pluralism was accompanied by the introduction of the muhasasa, a system for distributing political posts and public jobs according to ethnic and sectarian quotas, which resulted in a weak, ungovernable state which was paralyzed by partisan interests and became a breeding ground for corruption.
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Divisions and dissatisfaction
From the 2006-2008 civil war to the 2014-2017 war against the Islamic State (IS), Iraq has been torn by conflict. Successive elections, which have been more or less free and transparent, have led to repeated political crises as a result of endless bargaining between Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite political parties to gain control of key areas. Over the years, they have built up strongholds within the institutions from which they have taken state resources with impunity to feed their supporters, thereby preventing any modernization of the nation. The interference of foreign powers, most notably the Americans and their rival Iranians, has only reinforced the situation, at times even directly undermining Iraq's sovereignty, as in the case of the offensives carried out by Turkey and Iran in Iraqi Kurdistan.
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