With the country collapsing around him, Nouri al-Maliki’s strongman image is a sham. And that’s exactly why he’s so dangerous. There is something truly paradoxical about Iraq’s April 30 parliamentary elections. Although there is near unanimity among observers that the past four years have been disastrous for the country, many are still willing to defend Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s tenure — even going so far as to suggest that there is no one else who is capable of governing the country. However, the sad reality is that — given all the developments of his eight years in office — very few Iraqis are less suitable to be prime minister today than Maliki. Indeed, Maliki’s third term would likely be even more disastrous than his second, leading to a deterioration in security and causing the country to relapse into a new authoritarian era. Maliki’s defenders usually argue that the prime […]