What does Iraq's new government promise? A guide to Ali Al-Zaidi's ministerial program

Shafaq News- Baghdad

Iraq has a new prime minister and a new government program. For anyone outside the country trying to understand what Ali Falih Al-Zaidi's administration has actually committed to —and where the obstacles are already visible— the fourteen-pillar document ratified by parliament on May 14 offers a detailed, if carefully worded, set of answers.

This is what it says, and what it leaves unresolved.

The Hardest Commitment: Weapons and the State

Pillar One commits the government to consolidating all weapons under exclusive state authority, meaning no armed group outside the formal military and security structure should operate independently. In most countries, this would be an unremarkable statement, but in Iraq, it is the central unresolved dilemma of the post-2003 political order.

The Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella of predominantly Shiite armed factions that mobilized against ISIS after 2014, operates under nominal state authority but maintains independent command structures, funding channels, and regional alignments, most significantly with Iran.

The Al-Zaidi program does not dissolve the PMF. It commits to enhancing their combat capabilities while formally defining their responsibilities within the military structure according to law. Whether that legal definition materializes, and what it contains, will determine whether this pillar carries any practical weight.

The deferred cabinet portfolios tell their own story. Nine ministries remained unfilled after the May 14 session, including Defense and Interior, the two posts most directly responsible for implementing a weapons monopoly. The impasse was driven partly by the blocking of Nouri Al-Maliki’s State of Law Coalition candidate Qasim Atta for the Interior Minister post, with lawmakers accusing rival blocs of "injustice, betrayal, and treachery."

By convention in Iraq's sectarian power-sharing system, the Defense Ministry goes to a Sunni figure, with competing Sunni alliances —including the Taqaddum party led by former Parliament Speaker Mohammed Al-Halbousi and the Al-Azm alliance— submitting rival candidate lists.

Political sources told Shafaq News that Washington's categorical rejection of any names perceived as close to armed factions or directly under the Coordination Framework's influence was the principal obstacle to resolving the sovereign portfolios.

Foreign Policy: Sovereignty Under Pressure

Al-Zaidi's program describes an active foreign policy built on balance: keeping Iraq out of regional and international conflict axes while maintaining productive relationships in every direction. The language is deliberate and familiar from previous Iraqi governments.

What is specific is a commitment to activate the Strategic Framework Agreement (SFA) with the United States in a way that guarantees mutual interests. The SFA, signed in 2008 alongside a Status of Forces Agreement that set the original timeline for US troop withdrawal, governs the broader bilateral relationship covering defense, economic, energy, and cultural cooperation.

A September 2024 security agreement between Baghdad and Washington called for most US-led coalition forces to relocate from Iraqi bases to the Kurdistan Region by September 2025, with the bulk of remaining troops scheduled to depart by September 2026, leaving the SFA as the framework for whatever security relationship follows.

Al-Zaidi's endorsement of the SFA is notable precisely because it arrives under pressure. Days before the confidence vote, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel had established a secret military base in Iraq's western desert, southwest of Najaf, to support its aerial campaign against Iran, and those Israeli forces launched airstrikes on Iraqi troops who nearly discovered the site in early March, killing one Iraqi soldier. Shafaq News sources learned that the United States blocked an Iraqi investigation into the base.

The episode landed directly in the new government's lap: a program committing to the principle that Iraq will not be used as a corridor for attacks on other states, adopted days after evidence emerged that its territory had been used for precisely that, with American awareness.

Al-Zaidi's program also prioritizes building relations with Gulf states and advancing the Development Road, a major infrastructure corridor intended to link the Arabian Gulf to Turkiye and Europe through Iraqi territory, as well as a commitment to channel all international engagement through official diplomatic channels.

The Economy: Ambitious Architecture, Familiar Pressures

Three new institutional bodies anchor the economic program. A Supreme Council for Financial and Monetary Stability would coordinate fiscal and monetary policy. A Supreme Investment Council would rebuild the framework for attracting foreign direct investment. A Generations Fund would preserve Iraqi citizens' future share of oil and natural resource revenues —a sovereign wealth mechanism with structural parallels to Norway's Government Pension Fund and several Gulf state models.

Banking reform is a stated priority, with explicit reference to anti-money laundering compliance and international banking standards. The framing is directly relevant to Al-Zaidi's own background: he previously served as chairman of Al-Janoob Islamic Bank, which was sanctioned by the United States in 2024 over alleged money laundering on behalf of Iran and Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite armed groups.

While Al-Zaidi is not himself under sanctions, the institution he once led sat at the center of the exact tension he must now navigate as head of government. An investigation by financial crime assessment firm K2 Integrity found no credible evidence linking Al-Zaidi to Iran-linked financial activities, with a source noting the restrictions were imposed for reputational risk rather than proven involvement in money laundering.

Beyond Al-Janoob, the broader banking sector has faced sweeping US Treasury measures in recent years, with dozens of Iraqi private banks cut off from dollar-clearing access over compliance failures. The banking reform pillar addresses this directly, though the political will to implement it against the interests of faction-linked financial networks remains the central question.

The program also commits to expanding the role of the insurance sector in the national economy, a commitment that signals awareness of a market that remains underdeveloped relative to Iraq's economic scale.

The private sector is positioned as the primary driver of growth and employment, with monopoly prevention and competitive principles written into the framework. Foreign companies operating in Iraq, particularly major oil firms, are promised dedicated security protection. How much of this framework gets built depends substantially on global oil prices, which fund roughly 90 percent of the Iraqi state budget, a dependency the program acknowledges but cannot resolve.

Energy: The Iranian Gas Problem

Iraq's electricity crisis is among the most visible failures of post-2003 governance, and the program addresses it in unusual technical detail. But the structural problem runs deeper than the reform agenda acknowledges.

The sanctions waiver that had exempted Baghdad from penalties for purchasing Iranian energy expired in March 2025 under the Trump administration, which declined to renew it. At peak supply, Iran was delivering around 30 million cubic meters of gas per day to Iraq, enough to support nearly a third of the country's power generation capacity. Iranian gas flows dropped by roughly 40 percent between April and August 2025 as sanctions enforcement tightened.

Iraq now faces peak summer demand of roughly 40 gigawatts against current production of approximately 29 gigawatts, a shortfall that Iranian imports once helped partially bridge and that domestic alternatives have not yet replaced.

The program commits to ending this dependency by accelerating associated gas capture, reducing flaring, and developing domestic gas production on a fixed timeline coordinated with the oil ministry. Iraq simultaneously flares enough natural gas to power millions of homes while importing gas from Iran to keep power plants running —a paradox that successive governments have promised to resolve, and none has fully delivered.

The program also commits to legislating the long-stalled Oil and Gas Law, a draft that has remained deadlocked in parliament since 2007 and whose passage would directly affect revenue-sharing arrangements between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

The electricity pillar also calls for private sector participation in distribution, transition to smart grid infrastructure, and a tariff review with explicit protection for low-income households.

Governance and Corruption: The Recurring Commitment

The governance pillar commits to institutional reform across all ministries, digital transformation to reduce bureaucracy, financial investigation mechanisms running parallel to legal proceedings, and decentralization of administrative and financial authority to the provinces. A national anti-corruption framework with clear legal and oversight mechanisms is promised.

The communications and technology pillar is among the more concrete and ambitious sections of the document. Beyond digital transformation of government services, national digital identity, and a data governance framework, the program commits to establishing national centers for cybersecurity and artificial intelligence and strengthening their institutional and technical capabilities. A national mobile license project in partnership with the Iraqi private sector is named specifically, a significant market reform in a sector currently dominated by a small number of operators under opaque regulatory arrangements.

Most notable for an international technology audience is the commitment to position Iraq as an international data transit hub and a regional data exchange center. Iraq sits between three continents and borders six countries, a geographic reality the program proposes to monetize through digital infrastructure investment rather than leaving it underutilized.

Regulatory oversight of social media content to enhance societal stability is also committed to, sitting in direct tension with the program's own guarantee of press freedom and freedom of opinion in the same pillar.

The two positions occupy the same government document: one promising to regulate online content, the other pledging to protect media freedom. How the government resolves that contradiction in practice will be an early indicator of its governance character, and one that international press freedom organizations are already positioned to monitor.

Human Capital: Education, Health, and Social Protection

The education pillar commits to raising standards across public and private schools, continuing a school construction program funded through the Iraq-China framework agreement, launching a national literacy program, and expanding university specializations in modern fields. Support for study abroad scholarships in priority disciplines and scientific research centers is included.

Health commitments center on expanding insurance coverage, completing stalled hospital projects, and modernizing public hospitals, with a specific focus on rare medical specializations and pharmaceutical research and development.

The social protection pillar proposes a gradual shift from welfare dependency to economic empowerment, moving beneficiaries from cash assistance toward small and medium enterprise support, microfinance, and vocational training.

Culture, Youth, and the National Identity Question

A full pillar is devoted to culture, tourism, and archaeology, committing to revive Iraq's civilizational heritage in domestic and international forums, develop museums, including virtual ones, recover looted artifacts, and build cultural tourism into a source of budget revenue.

A cultural security project is named explicitly, framing culture as a defense of national identity. In a country where sectarian and ethnic divisions remain politically operative, and where the government's own coalition reflects those divisions, the framing carries weight beyond its surface meaning.

The youth and sports pillar calls for institutional empowerment of young Iraqis in decision-making, digital platforms for youth engagement, and funding models allowing sports clubs to sustain themselves from their own revenues rather than state dependency.

Human Rights, Women, and Civil Society

Pillar Twelve addresses human rights, women, and children, and for international observers, it is among the more closely watched sections of any Iraqi government program.

The commitments include combating all forms of violence and discrimination against women and children through legislation against domestic violence, accountability in cases of abuse, and embedding a human rights culture across state institutions.

Leadership training programs for women in government and political work are specifically named, alongside a commitment to treat women as active and fundamental partners in development and decision-making.

The pillar also commits to strengthening the role of local and international civil society organizations in human rights protection, and to establishing an independent body for civil society affairs with a long-term plan to support, empower, and evaluate their social role.

Whether the institutional calculus to implement them follows is a separate issue. Iraq ranked 132nd out of 146 countries in the World Economic Forum's 2024 Global Gender Gap Index, and civil society organizations have operated under increasing legal and political pressure in recent years.

Industry: Restoring a Neglected Sector

Iraq's industrial sector, once a meaningful contributor to the national economy, has contracted sharply over decades of conflict, sanctions, and oil dependency. Pillar Five commits to reversing that trajectory through legislative and regulatory reform, with the stated goal of increasing the industry's share of gross domestic product and reducing reliance on oil revenues.

The program identifies strategic industries —food processing, pharmaceuticals, and construction materials— as priority sectors, and commits to reactivating stalled state-owned factories through partnerships with strategic investors from inside and outside Iraq. Export-oriented industries and those with high local employment intensity receive preferential treatment under the framework, alongside environmentally-friendly projects.

The development of industrial cities is named as a structural goal, alongside streamlining the administrative procedures and licensing processes that have long deterred private industrial investment.

An export support fund and a policy of protecting domestic products against dumping are also committed to, measures that signal an intent to use trade policy actively rather than leaving local manufacturers exposed to cheaper imports. How much of this translates into functioning industrial policy depends heavily on the investment climate reforms promised in the economic pillar and on the security guarantees the government can credibly offer to private and foreign investors.

Agriculture, Water, and Food Security

Iraq sits at the downstream end of the Tigris and Euphrates river system, with Turkiye and Iran controlling significant upstream flow through dam construction and diversion projects that have reduced Iraqi river levels dramatically over the past two decades. Against that backdrop, Pillar Six commits to restoring agricultural production as a vital economic sector, adopting modern irrigation techniques, and pursuing food security as an explicit policy goal.

The program commits to leveraging Iraq's political and economic relationships with upstream countries to secure maximum water benefit, directing those relationships specifically toward agricultural development.

Livestock production, reduction of food imports, local and foreign agricultural investment, and water conservation across all sectors are also addressed. The UN has identified Iraq as one of the five countries most vulnerable to climate change and water scarcity, an urgency the document itself does not fully convey.

What the Program Does Not Resolve

Similar commitments appeared in the programs of both of Al-Zaidi's immediate predecessors, Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani and Mustafa Al-Kadhimi. According to a Shafaq News analysis comparing the programs of Al-Zaidi and his two immediate predecessors, the vast majority of core commitments appeared verbatim in one or both previous programs without having been resolved. The program does not name specific cases, frozen assets, or institutional targets, standard for a program document, but limiting for any observer trying to identify measurable commitments.

However, Al-Zaidi's ministerial program is more technically specific than many of its predecessors in several areas, particularly banking reform, energy, and digital governance.

The nine unfilled cabinet posts —Defense, Interior, Planning, Culture, Reconstruction and Housing, Higher Education, Labor, Migration and Displacement, and Youth and Sports— will be negotiated in a subsequent parliamentary session after the Eid al-Adha holiday. The outcomes, particularly for Defense and Interior, will signal more about the direction of this government than any written commitment.

Three structural realities sit outside the document's pages. The armed factions' question is the load-bearing issue: the program commits to a state weapons monopoly, while the political system that produced this government includes actors with direct interests in preventing that monopoly from becoming real. The Israeli base episode and the US sanctions pressure over banking and armed factions' inclusion have narrowed Al-Zaidi's room to maneuver before his government has fully formed.

Iraq's budget remains overwhelmingly dependent on oil. Every reform ambition in this document: the Generations Fund, the investment councils, the hospital projects, the school construction, is downstream of a commodity price set in markets Baghdad does not control.

The post-Eid parliamentary session is the first measurable test of whether the commitments in this document have the political backing to survive contact with reality.

Written and edited by Shafaq News Staff.

What does Iraq's new government promise? A guide to Ali Al-Zaidi's ministerial program

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