The Silver Lining in Iraq’s Wiretapping Scandal

On August 28, 2024, journalists exposed a wiretapping scandal that the Iraqi Intelligence Service apparently disrupted. Iraqi security officials arrested seven suspects, several of whom worked in Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani’s direct office as well as the intelligence service that Sudani oversees, having failed to appoint an independent director.

Among those detained are Mohammed Juhi, deputy director general of personnel affairs in Sudani’s office; Lieutenant General Abdul Karim al-Sudani, Sudani’s military secretary; Sudani office manager Ihsan al-Awadi; and Ahmed Ibrahim al-Sudani, Awadi’s corollary in the intelligence service. Sudani’s opponents allege he spied on Chief Judge Faiq Zidan and prominent politicians and rivals. They demanded his resignation.

Sudani’s inner circle denied the charges, though. On September 6, 2024, Fadi al-Shammari declared, “This is an inflated lie,” and argued, “Everything that has happened in the last two weeks consists of media exaggeration contrary to reality and the truth.” Shammari blamed malfeasance on one aide who sued fake names and different phone numbers to solicit files from different government officials.

The Impact

If the charges are accurate and if Sudani is personally involved, his administration would be in jeopardy.

He would not be Iraq’s first prime minister to resign. Adil Abdul-Mahdi stepped down just a year and a half into his term after security forces and Iraqi militias corrupted by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired on protestors upset at poor government services and corruption, killing hundreds. 

Sudani is no Abdul-Mahdi, though. He does not believe force trumps competence. Of all Iraq’s post-war prime ministers, Sudani, alongside Haider al-Abadi, prime minister between 2014 and 2018, demonstrates the greatest mastery of detail and the workings of government. Sudani sees himself more as a technocrat and, before the scandal, enjoyed a reputation in Baghdad for both competence and financial cleanliness.

This put him in sharp contrast to Nouri al-Maliki, prime minister between 2006 and 2014, whom most Iraqis associate with corruption and sectarianism, and Sudani predecessor Mustafa al-Kadhami, whom Iraqis remember for corruption within his immediate office and a lack of charisma. It also sets Sudani apart from every Kurdish leader. Even Sudani’s critics praise his intelligence, a sharp contrast to Ibrahim al-Jaafari, prime minister in 2005 and 2006, who bemused Iraqis and foreign officials with his propensity for word salad. 

What Happens Next?

Ultimately, time will tell if the scandal is as bad as Sudani’s critics, many partisans of his predecessor, say. If Sudani survives the scandal, it may still affect his efforts to win a second term. Those outside Iraq who denigrate Iraqi democracy and Americans prone to viewing Iraq not on its own terms but rather as a political football to re-litigate past policy disputes should recognize the big picture: First, the Iraqi press exposed the scandal; Iraq’s neighbors—including NATO member Turkey—lack the vibrancy of Baghdad’s press, even if many Iraqi journalists lack professionalism. Second, more than half the country was born after the 2003 war.

Whereas many Arab leaders operate behind a cloak of secrecy and their citizens feel powerless to stop the abuse of power in which they assume their leaders engage, Iraqi political culture now does not tolerate such abuses of power. More importantly, Iraqis feel they can hold their leaders to account. 

It is impossible to flip a switch and make longstanding dictatorships into democracies overnight. Changing political culture is a generational project. President George W. Bush did not create Iraqi democracy; Iraqis themselves did, though Bush gave them space to achieve their goals. With the benefit of hindsight, however, perhaps Bush and the maligned neoconservatives were not so wrong after all.

About the Author: Dr. Michael Rubin

Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum. A former Pentagon official, Dr. Rubin has lived in post-revolution Iran, Yemen, and pre- and postwar Iraq. He also spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. For more than a decade, he taught classes at sea about the Horn of Africa and Middle East conflicts, culture, and terrorism to deployed US Navy and Marine units. Dr. Rubin is the author, coauthor, and coeditor of several books exploring diplomacy, Iranian history, Arab culture, Kurdish studies, and Shi’ite politics.