Nouri al-Maliki has never been the solution for Iraq. Not during his eight years in power. Not in the decade that followed his departure. And not during the country’s long collapse since 2003. He has always been part of the problem, never the solution. Today, amid growing talk of his potential return to the premiership, Iraq seems to be deliberately heading back towards the very tragedy it has spent 22 years trying to escape. It is as if two decades of failure, corruption and institutional decay were not enough to convince the political class that ruin cannot be recycled. Al-Maliki’s return is not a routine political development; it is a historical relapse that takes Iraq back to square one — to the moment when all its crises began: sectarianism, corruption, state collapse and the rise of ISIS.

This week, I reviewed an American study with limited circulation that offers a stark and detailed picture of the disaster awaiting Iraq should al-Maliki return to power. The study states: ‘Al-Maliki no longer holds the influence he once had, and his current alliances are the product of Iranian pressure rather than his own political strength.’ This sentence encapsulates the situation perfectly: al-Maliki is returning not because he is capable, but because he is required — by Iran and its militias in Iraq. He is returning not with a vision, but as a component of a larger project. He is the weakest link in Iran’s chain of influence — a figure that Tehran prefers precisely because he is malleable, not independent. This alone makes his comeback a recipe for renewed instability. Iraq does not need a weak man driven by sectarian resentment; it needs a state capable of protecting itself from such individuals.

Even within the Coordination Framework—the umbrella of........

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