If Nouri Al-Maliki returns to power, the United States cutting support to Iraq would be a moral half-measure. Iraq does not suffer from a shortage of ultimatums. It suffers from a systemic criminal enterprise masquerading as governance. What Iraq needs is not punishment by neglect, but surgical dismantling of the entire state machinery that has looted the country blind since 2003 and handed it, piece by piece, to militias and foreign patrons.

Al-Maliki is not merely a failed leader. He is the incarnation of Iraq’s post-invasion catastrophe: sectarian rule, institutional collapse, and the conversion of the state into a private estate for armed gangs and political parasites. Under his watch, corruption metastasized, militias were legalized, and sovereignty was auctioned to Tehran. His return would be a declaration that Iraq has surrendered any remaining claim to justice.

If Washington is truly serious about preventing Iraq’s final descent into the abyss, it must aim not at pressure, but at rupture.

The first step must be the dissolution of the Popular Mobilization Forces. The PMF is not a national defense institution. It is a constellation of sectarian militias, many directly loyal to Iran, operating with impunity, running secret prisons, silencing dissent, and turning neighborhoods into private fiefdoms. A state cannot exist alongside a parallel armed authority. Every militia, regardless of sect, flag, or slogan, must be dismantled. The gun cannot outrank the law.

Second, the financial lifelines of corruption must be severed. Iraqi politicians, members........

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