When Haider al-Abadi was tasked with forming a new Iraqi government in August 2014, just weeks after a lightning offensive by the Islamic State group, many believed he would fail.<\/p>\n
Three years later, the stocky prime minister with a close-cut white beard has transformed what many in Iraq considered \u201cmission impossible\u201d into a success story.<\/p>\n
He has rebuilt the crumbling armed forces, chased IS from more than 90 percent of territory it had seized — around a third of Iraq — and retaken disputed areas in the north from Kurdish peshmerga fighters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe standard view of Abadi was that he was indecisive, weak and bit too conciliatory for Iraqi politics,\u201d says Fanar Haddad, a research fellow at the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore.<\/p>\n
When Abadi took over from Nuri al-Maliki he faced huge challenges, including rampant corruption, poor infrastructure, falling oil prices and the jihadist threat.<\/p>\n
Abadi was up against \u201cthe world\u2019s hardest job\u201d, says Sajad Jiyad, director of the Baghdad-based independent Al-Bayan Centre for Planning and Studies.<\/p>\n
But dressed in military garb or suit and tie, Abadi over time announced several military victories while trying to battle corruption by rolling out sweeping reform.<\/p>\n
His policies won him supporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is the best prime minister in Iraq\u2019s history. He speaks little but acts a lot,\u201d one of Abadi\u2019s 2.5 million followers on Facebook recently wrote.
\nSaudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud gestures as he speaks with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia October 22, 2017. (Reuters )<\/p>\n
Analysts say Abadi has succeeded where other Iraqi premiers failed.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis calm and conciliatory manner and his openness to dealing with a broad array of actors (inside and outside Iraq) stand in stark contrast to his predecessor,\u201d says Haddad.<\/p>\n
A recent survey carried out by an Iraqi polling institute found the Shiite premier has a \u201c75 percent approval rating\u201d, even including Iraq\u2019s Sunni minority, Jiyad notes.<\/p>\n
From exile to politics<\/p>\n
A member of the Dawa party, Abadi was born in 1952 in a wealthy Baghdad district but lived in exile for much of Saddam Hussein\u2019s rule, including in Britain where he earned a doctorate in engineering from the University of Manchester.<\/p>\n
Two of Abadi\u2019s brothers were arrested and executed by Saddam\u2019s regime for membership of the Dawa party, which opposed his rule, while a third was imprisoned for a decade on the same charge.<\/p>\n
Abadi returned to Iraq after Saddam\u2019s overthrow in 2003 and was communications minister in the interim government set up after the dictator\u2019s fall.<\/p>\n
In 2006 he was elected to parliament, chairing an economy, investment and reconstruction committee and then a finance committee.<\/p>\n
He was voted deputy parliament speaker in July 2014, before being tapped to form the government a month later.<\/p>\n
Perhaps his greatest accomplishment since then was to rebuild the Iraqi police and army which had been weakened by decades of conflicts, including the 2003 US-led invasion.<\/p>\n
Abadi succeeded in remobilising tens of thousands of force members with help from Iraq\u2019s allies, including the United States, which stepped in to train and equip them.<\/p>\n
Under his command, Iraq\u2019s forces chased IS jihadists from more than 90 percent of the territory they had seized, dealing a major blow to the group\u2019s self-proclaimed \u201ccaliphate\u201d.<\/p>\n
And earlier this month, Iraq\u2019s army retook Kurdish-held positions in and around Kirkuk province, outside the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq.<\/p>\n
International player<\/p>\n
These achievements have transformed Abadi into a hero, almost worshipped by many Iraqis.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday there seems to be a bit of a cult following growing around Abadi,\u201d says Haddad.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne hopes it doesn\u2019t go to his head; after all, Maliki in 2008-2009 was in a similar place to where Abadi is today,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n
Analysts say Abadi won the day thanks to his step-by-step approach.<\/p>\n
He also embarked on a battle against corruption and under his tenure several officials have been arrested and tried for graft.<\/p>\n
Jiyad notes that Abadi also \u201cdeftly positioned Iraq on the international stage\u201d and succeeded in securing the support of international allies.<\/p>\n
Diplomats based in Baghdad describe Abadi as someone who knows how to establish himself and command respect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Haider al-Abadi was tasked with forming a new Iraqi government in August 2014, just weeks after a lightning offensive by the Islamic State group, many believed he would fail. Three years later, the stocky prime minister with a close-cut white beard has transformed what many in Iraq considered \u201cmission impossible\u201d into a success story. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8312,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[315,87],"tags":[398,370],"class_list":["post-8311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-stories","category-world","tag-iraq","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8313,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8311\/revisions\/8313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}