Baghdad fills its last cabinet seats, and Washington says nothing about Khazali

Iraq’s parliament approved the remainder of Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s cabinet on Thursday 15 October, completing a government that had taken office earlier in the year, Reuters reported. The National, which carried the most granular account on 16 October, said 11 key positions were approved at a full parliamentary session, among them Defence Minister Nayef Al Shammari and Interior Minister Yasir Al Maliki — the son-in-law of former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, the detail The National led on. The Associated Press listed three deputy prime ministers plus new interior, defence, planning, higher education and culture ministers, with the rest of the cabinet filled five months earlier. One seat stayed empty: the vote on the migration and displacement nominee was postponed over disagreement among the parties. Al-Zaidi said the appointments opened “a phase of accelerated, diligent work” and pledged to implement the government’s programme.

The deputy premiership that drew the attention went to Laith al-Khazali, brother of Qais al-Khazali, who leads the Iran-aligned Asaib Ahl al-Haq. The New Arab notes that US forces arrested Laith al-Khazali in 2007 over allegations relating to an attack in Karbala that January in which five American soldiers were killed; The National described him as US-sanctioned. The other two deputies are Mohammed Ali Tamim of the Sunni Taqadum party and Asas Coalition leader Muhsin Al Mandalawi. The sharpest American response on the record came from Representative Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, who wrote on X that Khazali is “a designated terrorist and Iranian puppet whose militia AAH killed Americans and Iraqis.” Wilson sits in Congress, not in the administration. There was no immediate official US statement on the appointment.

Al Jazeera tied the completion of the cabinet directly to the fiscal emergency, reporting on 16 October that the vote finalised appointments against severe liquidity shortages stemming from the regional conflict, and noting that before the war Iraq exported roughly 3.5 million barrels a day through the Strait of Hormuz, generating 90 percent of government revenue. Al-Zaidi framed the vote the same way, telling parliament the regional conflict had posed exceptional economic and security challenges. He is formally an independent, a banker by background, affiliated with the Coordination Framework, who was backed by President Donald Trump on taking office and has sought to hold relations with both Washington and Tehran — a balance that narrowed after the United States and Iran went to war on 28 February. One figure to hold loosely: The New Arab’s 13 October pre-vote exclusive reported agreement on nine ministers and four deputy prime ministers. Three were seated.

Assessment: The silence from the administration is the signal, not Wilson’s post. A White House that rejected Nouri al-Maliki’s candidacy in February had the option of saying something about a sanctioned deputy premier and did not take it, which suggests Washington has decided that al-Zaidi’s survival is worth more than the composition of his bench — or that, with the last US troops out since 30 September, it no longer has a cheap way to object. Read the Khazali seat as the Coordination Framework’s price for letting an independent banker keep the premiership through a revenue collapse. Treat pre-vote party arithmetic from single outlets as negotiating positions; only the floor vote counts.