Ali al‑Zaidi, a 41‑year‑old ex‑businessman with “extensive financial investments,” parachuted into Baghdad as the “compromise candidate” of the Coordination Framework in May 2026. No statecraft, no record of service — just a smirk, a patterned tie, and a camera ready.
🤡
“If the people knew a little of what I do, they’d keep my picture on their eyelids.”
That’s the line he dropped in his latest interview, delivered with that self‑loving grin now circulating as a ready‑made caricature of the man. Not one number, not one promise — just a demand to be worshipped. This is a prime minister talking about his image, while the state burns.
🕵️ Prime Minister AND Spymaster — what next, President for life?
Days after sacking INIS chief Hamid al‑Shatri, al‑Zaidi personally assumed the head of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service — officially “at a lower administrative level,” a phrase so absurd it’s almost a joke.
The sitting PM, already commander‑in‑chief of the armed forces, now directly commands the deepest security file in the country.
The question isn’t “why?” — it’s what happens when one man holds the gun, the money, and the secrets.
Watch how the “Coordination Framework” suddenly fell silent.
Sovereignty is now a line item in a spreadsheet
The 2027 budget draft is a confession:
a 43‑trillion‑dinar deficit
16.1 trillion dinars of new and rolling borrowing
and internal debt at 117.2 trillion dinars (Central Bank, end of August 2026).
While he plays spymaster, Iraq is quietly signing up for a new IMF financing program — meaning Baghdad’s next decisions will be written in Washington and Paris, not in the Iraqi parliament.
💸 Corruption: the hunter and the habitat
His first year delivered mass arrests, cash seizures and convicts in the oil and electricity ministries, with the axe swinging toward former PM Sudani.
Impressive theater — from a government that was building that very system.
And the sharpest irony: US envoy Tom Barrack was reportedly pressing to slot his own business partner’s firm into the Hormuz‑bypass pipeline deal.
Corruption in Iraq isn’t a scandal anymore — it’s the operating system, and al‑Zaidi’s “crackdown” is just the latest patch.
🇸🇾 The handshake with al‑Julani
His first trip to Damascus was to embrace Ahmed al‑Sharaa — Abu Mohammed al‑Julani, the former HTS emir whose face Iraqis spent a generation seeing on terrorist lists.
“One people, two countries,”
they said while signing the Baniyas pipeline — a US‑backed oil route that reroutes Iraq’s blood out of the hands of its own people and into a deal he negotiated for Damascus.
For millions of Iraqis who buried sons under the previous regime’s successors, this isn’t diplomacy.
It’s salt in the wound.
🇺🇸 Baghdad’s true capital is now Washington
Barrack in June.
Al‑Zaidi in July, meeting him at his own residence in Washington.
Barrack again in October.
Energy deals, “disarming the militias,” pipeline partners — every file has an American co‑signatory.
Iraq’s sovereignty didn’t just dip during his tenure; it was packed, labeled, and shipped out the door.
⚖️ The verdict
Al‑Zaidi is a disappointment with a press office.
A businessman in a suit, a self‑appointed spymaster, a pipeline salesman, and a man who believes his own smile is a policy.