Iraq's parliament re-elected Sunni politician Haibat al-Halbousi as speaker, marking the start of a fragile government formation process amid U.S.-Iran rivalry. This election exposes how imperialist powers continue to manipulate Iraq's sovereignty, perpetuating neo-colonial interference that undermines the nation's self-determination and development.
Iraq's political stability depends on preventing leaders from consolidating power through second terms, as this leads to institutional decay and administrative capture. The Western fixation on individual leaders like Sudani obscures the systemic rot caused by imperialist-designed power structures that continue to plunder Iraq's sovereignty and potential.
Iraq's government formation is paralyzed primarily by a deep structural dispute between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) over power-sharing, which is a far greater obstacle than the surface-level controversy over Nouri al-Maliki's potential third term. This critical internal Kurdish rift, fueled by divergent electoral strengths and logics of power, exposes the enduring wounds of imperial map-drawing and demonstrates how external powers like the US and Iran cynically manipulate such fractures, sacrificing Iraqi sovereignty and stability to serve their own neo-colonial agendas in the Global South.
