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Depuis 1955, une même formation dirige le Japon (presque) sans discontinuer. L'essor économique du pays, quatrième puissance mondiale ? C'est elle. L'alignement sur la croisade anticommuniste des États-Unis dans la région ? C'est elle. Et le retour à une logique de guerre froide ouvrant la (…) / Japon, Parti politique, Élections

Topic: Foreign Leaders Blog Brand: Middle East Watch Region: Middle East Tags: Ali Khamenei, Iran, Iraq, ISIS, Kurds, Nuri al-Maliki, Shia, and United States What Nuri al-Maliki’s Iraqi Comeback Means for the US February 4, 2026 By: Charbel Antoun Share

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The revival of Iraq’s most polarizing Shia leader signals Iran’s intent to set the terms of engagement with the Donald Trump administration.

Iraq’s dominant Shia bloc has reached into the past to choose a face for the future: former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. His nomination is being marketed as the return of an “experienced” strongman capable of restoring order and finally bringing Iran-aligned militias under state control. But this narrative is political theater. Maliki’s comeback is not a technocratic reset—it is a strategic message from Tehran to Washington that Iran intends to defend its primacy in Iraq through its most loyal and battle-tested operator.

Maliki’s record is not one of restraining armed groups. His tenure between 2006 and 2014 saw Iraq descend into its worst sectarian bloodshed since 2003, the loss of three provinces to ISIS, and the deepening entrenchment of Shia militias inside the state. Yet the same Iran-aligned coalition dominating parliament is reviving him now—precisely as Washington pressures Baghdad to curb militia influence and as the US facilitates the transfer of up to 7,000 ISIS detainees from Syria into Iraqi custody. There is more choreography to this decision than coincidence.

The Myth of Nuri al-Maliki the “Fixer”

A new narrative is taking shape: Maliki as the only figure strong enough to centralize power and impose order. Former US diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad has echoed this framing, and some regional commentators have embraced it as well. Saudi anchor Malek Alrougui argued that Maliki could “put the militias back in the bottle,” though even he conceded that the task is to “limit their power, not eliminate them.” He also noted that Iraq’s political elite seeks to construct an “Iraq under Maliki” to counterbalance a “Syria under al-Shara.” But this reading ignores the historical record. Maliki did not put the militias in the bottle; he shattered the bottle and built a political system that depended on them.

The idea that Maliki will dismantle or meaningfully weaken the militias is a structural fantasy. These groups are Iran’s primary lever of influence in Iraq. Tehran does not empower a loyalist to dismantle its own leverage.

Maliki’s likely role is to rebrand and centralize militia influence by integrating them deeper into state institutions; shield them from international scrutiny under the guise of “state control”; manage sensitive issues—including the transfer of thousands of ISIS detainees—within a security ecosystem aligned with Iran. This is not a plan to tame the militias. It is a plan to cement their position and present the arrangement to Washington as a fait accompli.

Iraqi political life often moves in circles rather than forward. As Iraqi academic Ayad Anbar notes, the system “reproduces itself without any circular or spiral development.” Maliki’s nomination fits this pattern.

Lebanese analyst Mustapha Fahs argues that the move reflects a new phase in which the Shia right and the Shia mainstream face an unprecedented challenge in maintaining their power amid regional realignment and rising domestic pressure. He also highlights the significance of Masoud Barzani’s support for Maliki—an alignment between the Shia right and the Kurdish right that exposes the depth of political bargaining required to manage Iraq’s next chapter.

Why Ali Khamenei Chose Nuri al-Maliki

Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has clearly blessed Maliki’s return over more consensus-oriented Shia figures. By elevating a polarizing veteran, Tehran signals that it values ideological loyalty over domestic legitimacy or Western approval. As Omar Abdulsattar Mahmoud—a leader in the Iraqi National Opposition Council and former member of parliament—put it, Iran is “dealing a painful blow to Trump and seizing complete control of all aspects of the Iraqi state and government.”

This sort of messaging indicates that Maliki’s return is not about governing Iraq. It is about shaping the terms of engagement with the Donald Trump administration. If Washington intends to revive elements of “maximum pressure,” Tehran is preparing to answer with “maximum resistance” through a Baghdad leadership fully aligned with its strategic worldview.

US Options: Punish Nuri al-Maliki, Don’t Just Protest

The timing of Maliki’s nomination was not lost on Washington. Just hours after the news broke, the State Department released a readout of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s call with Prime Minister Mohammed Shiaa al-Sudani, warning that “a government controlled by Iran cannot successfully put Iraq’s own interests first, keep Iraq out of regional conflicts, or advance the mutually beneficial partnership between the United States and Iraq.” The United States evidently views Iraq’s government formation process as a strategic red line, not an internal matter, and is prepared to recalibrate its approach if Baghdad tilts decisively toward Tehran.

Then came a direct and unusually blunt intervention from President Donald Trump on Truth Social, delivering a political body blow to Maliki’s bid. ​Trump warned: “Last time Maliki was in power, the Country descended into poverty and total chaos. That should not be allowed to happen again.” He added that “because of his insane policies and ideologies, if elected, the United States of America will no longer help Iraq and, if we are not there to help, Iraq has ZERO chance of Success, Prosperity, or Freedom.” Together, these statements transform Washington’s discomfort with Maliki into a clear threat of consequences for any Iraqi faction backing his return.

In 2014, the Obama administration helped push Maliki aside to prevent total state collapse. Today, the United States faces a far more entrenched reality. Washington cannot veto Iraqi internal politics, but it can shape the cost of political choices. The question is not whether the United States can stop Maliki’s appointment; it cannot. The question is how much it will make Maliki and his backers pay for it. Realistic means to impose costs on Maliki include targeted sanctions, financial pressure, conditional security cooperation, tighter oversight of US assistance, and diplomatic isolation of militia-aligned ministries. These are the levers that remain.

The West risks comforting itself with the illusion that a “strongman” can solve Iraq’s militia problem. Maliki’s return does the opposite: it entrenches the very forces that hollowed out the Iraqi state and paved the way for ISIS’ rise. If policymakers accept the myth of the “experienced fixer,” they are simply waiting for the next collapse.

About the Author: Charbel Antoun

Charbel A. Antoun is a Washington-based journalist and writer specializing in US foreign policy, with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa. He is passionate about global affairs, conflict resolution, human rights, and democratic governance, and explores the world’s complexities through in-depth reporting and analysis.

Image: 360b / Shutterstock.com.

The post What Nuri al-Maliki’s Iraqi Comeback Means for the US appeared first on The National Interest.

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I took this photo during my fieldwork in Budapest in January 2023. It is the dark entrance hall of the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) Faculty of Humanities building. Despite being mid-term, the space is empty and unlit because the university was forced to shut the campus for in-person classes and transition to online education due to an inability to afford heating costs.

Zahra Jafarova

In the shifting landscape of European higher education, neoliberal reforms used to be celebrated as tools for financial efficiency and institutional autonomy. But how does such a market-oriented framework function when it is instrumentalized by a regime drifting away from democracy towards authoritarianism? In Hungary, the transformation of the university system stands out as a flagship project of the Orbán administration, serving as a critical case study in how neoliberal mechanisms can be systematically repurposed to reshape the boundaries of academic freedom.

 

In my article recently published in Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, I utilize the concept of soft authoritarianism to theorize how neoliberal mechanisms are utilized for controlling universities. Drawing on 25 qualitative interviews conducted in Hungary and Austria, this study explores three central mechanisms: (1) governance change that shifts decision-making to private foundations, (2) creating parallel institutions for research and teaching, and (3) selective coercion to signal the punitive capacity of the government. Together, these dynamics produce a system of neoliberal precarity, where academic freedom is not eliminated through open repression, but disciplined through establishment of structural insecurity.

 

Governance Reforms (Modellváltás) 

A crucial mechanism of this transformation is the “model change” reforms that were presented by the government as a step toward greater institutional autonomy (Kováts, 2023). Since 2018, 75% of public universities in Hungary have been transformed, transferring decision-making power within universities from academic senates to boards of private foundations (Pimenta & Rónay, 2022) that own the universities. 

 

As a result of model change, private foundation boards became decision-making bodies controlling budgets, hiring practices, and strategic priorities. The regime achieved indirect control by planting politically loyal individuals, including high-profile government ministers and regime-aligned business elites to these boards. Often these board members hold lifetime appointments ensuring conservative control regardless of future political changes. 

 

Model-changed universities lost their public institution status; faculty were stripped of their public service status and the protections of tenure. The regime introduced contract-based employment where job security is contingent on neoliberal metrics such as publication outputs and grant acquisition. This structural insecurity now functions as a tool of discipline; by forcing faculty to focus on financial survival, the regime successfully diverts attention away from politically sensitive studies.

 

The Rise of Parallel Institutions for Ideological Dominance 

While the model change allowed the regime to capture existing public universities from within, it simultaneously sought to bypass traditional academic spaces by building and heavily investing in a parallel infrastructure of ideologically aligned institutions (Dillabough & Peto, 2024) to expand the regime-friendly ideological knowledge production in Hungary. Central to this infrastructure are institutions such as the National University of Public Service (UPS) and Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC). The establishment of UPS ensured that the recruitment and educational programs of public servants are structured to serve the ruling party. Similarly, MCC has become a centre for regime-aligned intellectuals and political lobbying that were tasked to legitimize the regime’s ideological projects. In contrast to neoliberal logic, where resource allocation is justified by fair and open competition, these institutions are funded far beyond competitive necessity. For example, in 2020, MCC’s endowment of approximately €1.3 billion represents more funding than the entire public higher education system in Hungary (Kovacs-Angel, 2021).

 

In addition to these educational institutions, the government has established several ideologically aligned research centres, such as the Veritas Historical Research Institute, the Centre for Fundamental Rights and others. These centres produce scholarship in fields that the regime has special interest ideologically, such as national history, minority rights, and judicial independence (Trencsényi, 2021). By channelling research funding into these centres the regime ensures that sensitive topics are studied mainly within their ideological narratives, while counter-narratives are marginalized. This creates a system where knowledge production is steered through financial tools rather than open censorship, excluding openly targeted fields.

 

When Soft Authoritarianism Fails

While the soft aspect of  transformation relies on repurposed neoliberal mechanisms, the authoritarian nature of the regime is revealed when these indirect methods prove insufficient, for example in the case of the forced relocation of Central European University (CEU), intervention into resistance at the University of Theatre and Film Arts (SZFE) (Jafarova & Buckner, 2024), and the elimination of programs in sociology, social anthropology, and gender studies. These actions signal a clear punitive capacity, demonstrating that the regime is willing to deploy legal and administrative coercion to establish control of academic spaces.

 

The Cost of Academic Freedom

The soft authoritarian reforms in Hungary have created a stratified academic environment where academic freedom comes at a cost. Universities that avoided the model change reforms maintained better conditions for academic freedom due to governance structures remaining free from direct political interference. However, these institutions remain chronically underfunded, forcing faculty to work under precarious financial conditions and even forcing universities to shut down campuses for in-person classes due to an inability to afford heating costs. 

 

Conversely, model-changed universities offer significantly higher salaries, but this financial advantage comes at the expense of academic freedom, as faculty lost their tenure and are now evaluated by neoliberal metrics that set indirect limitations to exercise freedom in research, teaching, and expression. In this new system, the most advantageous positions are occupied by scholars of parallel institutions and research centres; faculty here enjoy stable careers and secured funding, yet this emerging academic elite is driven by ideological conformity and regime expectations. Ultimately, these reforms have fundamentally transformed the Hungarian higher education system into a mechanism that reshaped knowledge production, narrowing the space for diverse scholarship and effectively taming academic freedom through structural insecurity and neoliberal precarity.

 

Hungary provides an alarming example of how governments can repurpose neoliberal mechanisms to utilize university campuses as ideologically safe spaces. This study reveals that soft authoritarianism does not require the elimination of dissent; instead, it utilizes structural insecurity to fragment the academic community and weaken collective solidarity. By redirecting funding through seemingly objective neoliberal metrics, the regime can gatekeep sensitive research areas like national history studies without resorting to open repression.

 

Zahra Jafarova is a Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Canadian & International Higher Education at the University of Toronto, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (Canada). She recently defended her PhD in Higher Education, which examined how historical, political, and institutional forces shape academic freedom. Her research focuses on the policy and politics of higher education, with an emphasis on academic freedom and university autonomy. Her research has been published in Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, Globalisation, Societies and Education, and the Comparative Education Review. 

 

Bibliography

Dillabough, J. A., & Peto, A. (2024, May 4). New deceptions: How illiberalism is hijacking the university. University World News. https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20240501143215958

Jafarova, Z., & Buckner, E. (2024). Tweeting the academic resistance in Turkey and Hungary: From cultural crisis to defending the nation. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 0(0), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2024.2385549 

Kovacs-Angel, M. (2021, March 29). Százmilliárdokat adott a kormány a NER elitképzőjének, már látszik, hogy hová folyik tovább a pénz. 24.Hu. https://24.hu/fn/gazdasag/2021/03/29/mathias-corvinus-collegium-mcc-balasy-gyula-kommunikacio/ 

Kováts, G. (2023). University Governance Reform in an Illiberal Democracy: Public Interest Trusts in Hungary. In Accelerating the Future of Higher Education (pp. 186–204). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004680371_012 

Pimenta, C. L. R., & Rónay, Z. (2022). Governance models of Hungarian higher education: From Humboldtian to State-controlled model. Rivista Di Storia Dell’Educazione, 9(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.36253/rse-12335 

Trencsényi, B. (2021, April 26). Notes from the Underground: Academic Freedom, (Un)Civil Society, and “Kulturkampf” in Hungary [Billet]. TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research. https://trafo.hypotheses.org/27529

The post Soft Authoritarian Transformation of Higher Education in Hungary: Taming Academic Freedom with Neoliberal Precarity appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

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The hearing will highlight the interplay between civil and military ecosystems, while emphasising on dual use technologies, cybersecurity and cyber-defence, as well as the crucial role of public-private partnerships and industrial policies in reinforcing Europe's resilience.
Location : ANTALL 4Q2
Programme
Poster
CV-Luca Tagliaretti
CV-Nataliya Tkachuk
CV-Paulina Uznanska
CV-Ferdinand Gehringer
CV-Iva Tasheva
Presentation-OSW
Presentation-ECCC
Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

On 26 January, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte will engage in an exchange of views with Members of the Committees on Security and Defence (SEDE) and Foreign Affairs (AFET) as well as in association with the Delegation for relations with the NATO PA (DNAT).

Discussion topics will include the significant challenges facing the EU and NATO in today's complex geopolitical environment, efforts to strengthen Europe's defence also in view of Russia's ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine, the state and prospects of transatlantic relations as well as issues of burden-sharing, political cohesion and strategic adaptation.

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

The next meeting of the Committee on Security and Defence (SEDE) is scheduled to take place on Monday, 23 February 2026, 15.00 - 18.30 and on Tuesday, 24 February 2026 from 9.00 - 12.30 and 14.30 - 18.30 in Brussels (room SPAAK 1A2).

Further information about the SEDE meetings can be found here.

_______________________

SEDE missions 2025:

• Djibouti - 27-29 October 2025
  
• Greenland - 15-19 September 2025
  
• Norway - 27-30 May 2025
• Moldova and Ukraine - 14-17 April 2025
  
• Bosnia and Herzegovina - 24-27 February 2025
• Israel and Palestine - 5-8 February 2025

SEDE missions 2024:

• United Kingdom - 28-30 October 2024
• Ukraine - 25-26 October 2024

SEDE Committee meetings' calendar 2026
SEDE Committee meetings' calendar 2025
EP calendar 2026
Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

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[...] Bővebben!

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