Trump’s New Envoy, in His Image, Addresses Iraq Using Local Dialect

Mark Savaya, the newly appointed envoy of U.S. President Donald Trump to Iraq, published a statement on X (formerly Twitter) in both Arabic and English, using Iraqi dialect in much of the text.

In his statement, the infamous drug dealer praised what he described as “important steps” taken by Iraq’s leadership over the past three years to correct the political and economic course. He affirmed that Iraq is beginning to reclaim its sovereignty, working to reduce foreign influence, restrict weapons to state control, and open its doors to global investment.

Echoing the American rhetoric toward Lebanon—and amid a wave of “partitioning the already partitioned” that stretches from Sudan to Syria and now Iraq—Savaya appeared to be stripping Iraq of its tools of resistance to this wave. He called for weapons to be confined to the hands of the state, stressing Washington’s rejection of any armed groups operating outside government authority. He claimed Iraq’s stability and prosperity depend on unifying security forces under a single banner representing all Iraqis.

At the end of his statement, Savaya used Trump’s famous slogan in Iraqi dialect, saying: “Let’s make Iraq great again,” a clear invocation of Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again”—without clarifying what kind of “greatness” he was referring to. Is it foreign-controlled monarchy? The era of repeated coups? Or the bloody Ba’athist period that tore Iraq apart?