President Donald Trump offered congratulations to Iraq’s new Prime Minister, Ali al-Zaidi, for a resounding election victory this week. The only problem, according to a new report, is that the latter never actually stood for election. The awkward Oval Office exchange comes as the administration has had a role in shaping Iraqi politics.
Donald Trump repeatedly congratulated Ali al-Zaidi on a victory he did not win
During Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s first official visit to the White House, Donald Trump hailed him as a “fantastic champion” who defied the odds at the ballot box. The praise was effusive and direct. “We have a fantastic champion, a new champion, and he won the election very soundly, very conclusively, and he wasn’t favored,” Trump told reporters. “But by the time they got to know him, he ended up winning, and he’s going to be there for a long time.”
In reality, al-Zaidi never competed in any popular election. The businessman and political newcomer ascended to the premiership through a backroom consensus, not a campaign trail. Iraq did hold parliamentary elections last year, but al-Zaidi was not a candidate. He became Iraq’s prime minister only after months of constitutional deadlock that followed the Trump administration’s effective veto of the victorious Shiite bloc’s preferred nominee, former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki (via The Washington Post).
Trump himself had threatened in January to “no longer help” Iraq if Maliki returned to power. That intervention sent Iraqi political forces scrambling for a neutral alternative. Al-Zaidi, whose background included banking and managing Iraq’s government food basket programme, was ultimately deemed acceptable to competing factions.
The president’s framing of al-Zaidi’s path to power as an electoral triumph appeared to conflate his own endorsement with a popular mandate. Trump spoke of “tremendous chemistry” between two wealthy businessmen who entered government without prior political experience. “Mark my words, I knew what I was doing,” he said.
Iraq’s prime minister, speaking through an interpreter, did not correct the record in public. He instead focused on announcing an “economic partnership” between the two nations and plans to visit oil companies in Texas later this week.
