On January 27, US President Donald Trump declared on his Truth Social media platform that Iraq would be making a “disastrous mistake” if Nouri al-Maliki was reinstalled as prime minister. He argued that “last time Maliki was in power, the country descended into poverty and total chaos” and that this “should not be allowed to happen again.”Trump, typically riding roughshod over accepted practice, was openly seeking to influence the election of Iraq’s future prime minister.