Strange as it may seem, the Iraq of 2026 still seems to feel the effect of the events of 1990/1991, or at least those of 2003. This despite the fact that Donald Trump is already the third president after Bush the son, that Saddam was executed in 2006, and that the previously discriminated Shiite majority now controls the government in Baghdad. And the similarities with some situations from two or three decades ago exist because the old problems of ethno-religious division persist. In addition to adding to them the influence that Iran has gained in the country since, and this is obvious, the Americans promoted democracy and the majority of votes went to Shiite parties. Some of them are very close to the ayatollahs in Tehran, but they have been able, to some extent, to maintain liaison with Washington.
In the last elections, and taking into account the ethno-religious base of the parties, the Shiite parties won. But instead of agreeing to re-propose as Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani, head of the party with the most votes in November, and who since 2022 had governed with more or less widespread applause, they went instead to seek Nouri al-Maliki, who led the country between 2006 and 2014. It was enough for the United States to think it was too much and for Trump himself, now especially attentive to everything around Iran, to ensure that, with Maliki back at the head of the government, Iraq will no longer have American support. And even worse than losing support, you could see your oil exports sanctioned. There is also the possibility that the United States will reverse the law that prevents the Iraqi State from being prosecuted for the attack on Kuwait.
In addition to suspicions of commitment to pro-Iran sectors, Maliki has on his resume a government that deepened communal divisions in Iraq, in addition to being unable to stop the conquest of a third of the territory by the Islamic State jihadists, who made an alliance of convenience with former Saddam officers, purged from the Army.
Maliki, even though he tried to play the national pride card, is in a very fragile position. But more important than the fate of this politician is the fate of Iraq. In the post-Saddam era, to compensate for a prime minister who was always a Shiite, the country’s presidency has gone to a Kurd and the position of president of Parliament to a Sunni. It is proof of the division that existed before the American invasion and, in essence, the confirmation of the artificiality of Iraq, which may correspond to ancient Mesopotamia, but was a British creation at the end of the Spring World War, bringing together the former Ottoman provinces of Mosul (Kurds, that is, non-Arabs, even if Muslims), Baghdad (Sunnis) and Basra (Shiites).
With close to 50 million inhabitants, estimated to be 60% Shiite Arabs, 20% Sunni Arabs and 20% Kurds (who have notable autonomy in the so-called Iraqi Kurdistan), Iraq has enormous geopolitical value, in the heart of the Middle East, and it is not indifferent whether or not it falls to the Iranian side. With the fifth largest oil reserves in the world (it would have the second, just after Venezuela, if Saddam had managed to annex Kuwait), the country has everything it needs to modernize, if its political leadership invests in building the State and national unity through democratic means. And Trump’s desire to force Iran to change could be the ideal opportunity.
Sharing Shiism with Iran is not necessarily a sign of loyalty to the Persian neighbor, as was seen in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. At the time, Saddam did not hesitate to promote the Islamic warrior, who defeated the Crusaders, as a national hero. It mattered little to him that the head of the Arab Armies of nine centuries ago was actually a Kurd. And the truth is that millions of Shiite soldiers also fought for Iraq, adhering to the idea of an Iraqi state.
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