Something is shifting in Baghdad—and if Washington pays close attention, it looks less like a crisis to manage and more like a chance to grow the relationship.
In under two years, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has presided over the first stretch of broadly felt calm that many Iraqis can remember. In 2023, Gallup measured his approval at 69 percent, the highest it has recorded for any Iraqi leader since 2012. The Arab Barometer’s 2024 report likewise describes “emergent stability” in domestic politics, even as big challenges remain. None of this is a miracle. It is the product of Iraqi politics—not foreign choreography.
A key, if underappreciated, driver is political cohesion. The Coordination Framework—a Shia-led coalition from whose social and political base Sudani himself rose to power—is not monolithic and shouldn’t be romanticized. Yet, despite internal differences and legitimate critiques of some actors, it has functioned as the governing glue previous cabinets lacked, reducing the parliamentary deadlock that for years stalled basic services. In practical terms, decisions today are more likely to turn into implementation, a fact policy circles in Washington often miss.
You can see the difference in the energy sector, where power cuts have long eroded public trust. TotalEnergies’ multi-energy package—tied to gas capture, generation, and a 1-GW solar park—is moving ahead in phases, and construction on a key gas facility began earlier this year. At the same time, the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency is backing the grid interconnection between Iraq and the Gulf Cooperation Council, set to bring about 500 MW into southern Iraq at the outset. None of that fixes the grid overnight, but it’s exactly the kind of steady, state-capacity work citizens notice when the lights stay on longer than they used to.
This fall’s election, scheduled for November 11, matters because it will test whether today’s stability can be institutionalized. Washington’s habit, however, is still “crisis management,” too often treating Iraq as a place to perform resolve rather than to practice partnership. Even during Sudani’s April 15, 2024 visit to the White House, the most constructive language was about evolving the relationship around capacity and cooperation. This is the right direction, but one that now needs follow-through.
A more mature U.S. approach would respect Iraqi agency and help success compound. First of all, it would swap deadlines for yardsticks. Any transition from the anti-ISIS coalition should be criteria-based and tethered to Iraqi capacity: integrated command-and-control, credible border management, and a sustained reduction in attack cycles. Publish the metrics; let the timeline follow the data. That’s sovereignty-respecting and stability-minded—and it avoids the political theater of arbitrary dates.
Second, Washington should back what Baghdad is already building. Rather than launching flashy parallel programs, it should use U.S. tools—the Ex-Im Bank, risk guarantees from the Development Finance Corporation, technical support—to de-risk existing Iraqi-led energy fixes like gas capture and the GCC interconnect. The conditions should be clear and constructive— contract transparency, technology transfer, and local hiring—and should strengthen Iraqi institutions instead of bypassing them.
Finally, the United States should apply one standard to all armed actors,with real incentives. It should recognize the Framework’s role in reducing paralysis without waving away abuses. It should tie any security cooperation or sanctions relief to bright-line commitments: accountability for violations, no cross-border attacks, and movement toward formal command under the state. It should reward verified compliance, not rhetoric.
None of this requires the United States to ignore rights concerns or take sides in Iraq’s internal contests. Instead, it focuses on how durable stability is actually made: locally, incrementally, and through coalitions that are messy by design. When Washington insists on tidy narratives, it tends to produce tidy failures.
Iraq faces significant risks we shouldn’t gloss over — a tough economy, a fragile grid, a water crisis, and electoral uncertainty among them. But if the election period confirms that Iraqi politics can deliver continuity with accountability, the payoff is larger than one news cycle. It’s a pathway to a normal, predictable partnership two decades in the making.
Iraq’s current calm isn’t a gift to Washington. It’s something Iraqis have wrestled into being. The responsible U.S. choice in the months ahead is modest and disciplined: read the moment, measure what matters, and invest where Iraqis are already moving. That’s not deference; that’s what a serious power does with a sovereign partner.