If Iraq looks broken from the outside, it’s because we’re still using the wrong word. Iraq isn’t failing. It’s being captured.
For years, Washington has described Iraq’s political paralysis as dysfunction, another messy chapter in a young democracy. But that framing ignores what Iraqis themselves see every day: a system that no longer answers to its people, but to power networks aligned with Tehran.
The Coordination Framework, the bloc dominating Baghdad today, doesn’t behave like a normal political coalition. It behaves like a gatekeeper deciding who rises, who falls, and whose interests matter. And too often, those interests don’t belong to Iraq.
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The latest example is the nomination of Ali al Zaidi for prime minister.
This isn’t a story of a reformer stepping forward or a compromise candidate emerging. Inside Iraq, al Zaidi is widely viewed as the choice of figures such as Qais al Khazali and Nouri al Maliki, men whose political power is closely tied to Iran-backed networks.
His rise is also seen as aligned with the orbit of Esmail Qaani and the broader Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
For many Iraqis, this doesn’t feel like politics. It feels like the outcome is already decided.
And that’s the deeper problem.
Over the past two decades, Iraq hasn’t just struggled with corruption — it has normalized it. A political class has emerged that understands power not as public service, but as access: Access to contracts, to money, to influence.
The result is a system where wealth and authority often grow together, and where accountability is the exception, not the rule.
Even institutions meant to act as safeguards are no longer clearly independent. Figures such as Faeq Zaidan, the head of the judiciary, are seen by many Iraqis as part of the same political ecosystem they are supposed to oversee. When judges appear in political rooms, the line between law and power starts to disappear.
None of this is accidental. The nomination of al Zaidi is, in many ways, a win no matter what happens next.
If Washington pushes back or threatens sanctions, the Coordination Framework buys time, stretching negotiations while presenting itself at home as standing up to the United States.
If Washington stays quiet, the result could be even more significant: a prime minister tied to networks that have long operated at the intersection of politics, finance, and Iran’s regional strategy.
Either way, the same actors gain ground. And that’s where the U.S. comes in.
For years, U.S. policy has focused on keeping the process alive, encouraging dialogue, supporting institutions, and avoiding escalation. But in doing so, it has often avoided a harder question: What happens when the process itself is part of the problem?
By continuing to engage without setting clear limits, Washington has sent a message, whether intended or not, that these dynamics are tolerable. That message has shaped behavior.
It has rewarded those who can navigate this hybrid system of state authority and militia influence, while leaving reformers with fewer tools and less space.
At some point, calling this stability stops being accurate. If the U.S. wants a different outcome in Iraq, it has to act like it.
That means using the leverage it still has, especially financial, to push for real accountability. It means drawing clearer lines around who Washington is willing to work with. And it means recognizing that not every political outcome should be treated as equally acceptable.
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None of this guarantees success. But continuing on the current path guarantees something else: more of the same. Iraq’s situation didn’t happen overnight. It was built, step by step, decision by decision.
And it can continue that way unless something changes. Washington still has influence in Iraq. But influence that isn’t used eventually disappears. At this point, treating Iraq’s political crisis as business as usual isn’t caution. It’s a choice. And increasingly, it looks like the wrong one.
Heyrsh Abdulrahman is a Washington-based senior intelligence analyst and writer specializing in Middle East security, U.S. foreign policy, Iraqi governance, and Kurdish political affairs. His work appears in U.S. and international publications.