Analysis: Zaidi Government Avoids PMF Cabinet Role Question — Defense and Interior Posts Left Vacant

A Foundation for Defense of Democracies analysis published May 19 examined how the new Zaidi government deliberately sidestepped the defining question of post-conflict Iraqi politics: whether Iran-backed political parties affiliated with the PMF would control the security ministries. By leaving defense and interior unfilled, Zaidi avoided forcing the Coordination Framework into a choice between Sadiqoun (political wing of Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq) and more state-loyal alternatives. Sadiqoun publicly stated it would decide on cabinet participation only after the broader question of arms-to-state-control was settled — an implicit demand that the security ministries reward PMF political parties. The FDD noted that this structural ambiguity — a government with no defense or interior minister — left Iraq's security forces in a precarious command vacuum at a moment of elevated tension with the US over the KH terror charges and the ongoing PMF financial sanctions. The analysis concluded that Zaidi's first political test was simply surviving the contradictions he had inherited, not resolving them.