Iraq’s public finances have been under strain since oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz became a wartime risk. Before late February’s US–Israel campaign against Iran, Baghdad sold about 3.5 million barrels a day that way — roughly nine tenths of government income. Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, a former banker who took office in May, answered the squeeze by cutting the dinar’s value versus the dollar by about fifteen percent so salaries and essential spending could continue.
The arithmetic is unforgiving. The treasury needs around ten trillion dinars each month — some $6.7 billion — just for wages and critical outlays. Public debt already exceeded 208 trillion dinars, or about $139 billion at the new rate, when al-Zaidi arrived, and scrutiny of predecessor Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has not faded. Completing a full cabinet was therefore as much an economic signal as a political one.
Lawmakers cleared eleven empty ministries on Thursday. Defence goes to Nayef al-Shammari; the interior brief to Yasir al-Maliki; seats for planning, culture and universities were likewise filled. Parties could not agree on migration and displacement, so that ballot slipped. The same sitting also rubber-stamped three deputy premiers.
Al-Zaidi thanked the chamber and pressed for diligence, skill and honesty while listing priorities: curb corruption, disarm non-state gunmen, and finish the exit of US troops. He tied those tasks to the security and budget shocks of the Iran war.
Foreign capitals will focus on one of those deputies: Laith al-Khazali. He ranks high inside Iran-aligned Asaib Ahl al-Haq and shares a surname — and a dossier — with Qais al-Khazali. The United States branded the militia a foreign terrorist organisation in 2020; both siblings sit on the global-terrorist list tied to assaults that killed five American soldiers in 2007, and Treasury measures in 2019 cited protester deaths. Baghdad has nonetheless closed most of its cabinet gap with that choice included.
