Maliki's False Return to Iraq: Soudani Seeks a Scapegoat

Mohammed Shia al-Sudani's game in Iraq was not a mere clever political maneuver or a misjudgment, but a meticulously planned political conspiracy, orchestrated from within a corrupt system, to reproduce power by causing failure and profiting from it. Sudani is not external to the system that destroyed the state, nor above it, but rather at its very heart, benefiting from its mechanisms and mastering its methods. What distinguishes him from others is not integrity, but his ability to manage corruption discreetly and without fuss.

Nouri al-Maliki's return to the forefront of power was neither a coincidence nor a forced compromise. It was a carefully calculated maneuver. Maliki, with his heavy legacy, unresolved files, and widespread popular rejection, was the ideal candidate to bear the burden of the imminent collapse. He was not called to succeed, but to perish. He was not recalled to lead, but to serve as a scapegoat, to bear responsibility for the failures, thereby preparing the ground for his downfall and the dismantling of the entire coordination mechanism.

However, it is deliberately obscured that the one who orchestrated this game, allowed it to fester, and profited from it, is neither an impartial observer nor an opponent of corruption, but rather a full accomplice. Al-Sudani intimately knows the system from which he emerged: he masters financial flows, influence networks, conflicts of interest, and knows how corruption is managed without scandal. Therefore, corruption during his tenure was not an isolated incident, but a deliberate policy: less blatant, but deeper, more widespread, and more lasting corruption.

If he allowed al-Maliki and his entourage to get bogged down in affairs and scandals, it was not out of a rejection of corruption, but because he wanted to use it as a political weapon. He allowed the coordination system to disintegrate from within, not out of a desire for reform, but as a prelude to its loss of popular legitimacy and its transformation into a political liability. In this logic, al-Maliki was not the only target, but the entire system, thus preparing the ground for al-Sudani's return, presented as the 'lesser evil.'

This is where the great deception lies: presenting the situation as a struggle between corrupt individuals and a savior, when in reality it is a conflict within the corrupt establishment itself, between those who corrupt openly and those who corrupt silently. Al-Sudani does not represent a break with al-Maliki, but rather a colder evolution in his style and more dangerous in its consequences. He does not fight corruption because he is part of it, but because he understands that corruption is an instrument of governance, and he therefore redistributes it instead of dismantling it.

Al-Sudani has not opened a real corruption file affecting the heart of power. He has not addressed the underground economy, nor the networks of major contracts, nor the quota system that fuels the collapse. He has merely managed the calendar: who is sacrificed now, who is spared later, and who is eliminated if necessary. A reformist rhetoric intended for public consumption, without any concrete action.

In this context, the collapse itself becomes a political tool. The greater the devastation, the greater the need for a 'savior.' And the more victims there are, the more acceptable al-Sudani appears. It's a sordid game played on the ruins of the state, where failure is deliberately orchestrated and the proposed solution arises from the problem itself.

The real question today is no longer: who will fall? Maliki or the regime? But rather: will Iraqis once again accept the masquerade of a 'savior' manufactured within corruption itself, or will they demand a genuine alternative, born from outside?

The answer to this question will determine whether Iraq remains trapped in a cycle of collapse, or if it finally has a chance to break free.