Faced with political deadlock, open American meddling and the threat of war across its borders, is Iraq being dragged back to darker times after achieving hard-won stability?Today, with Trump threatening a possible strike on Iran,

The President said the U.S. will stop supporting Iraq if the country’s ex-PM al-Maliki returns to power.

US President Donald Trump has warned Iraq over reinstatement of Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister, saying that the country “descended into poverty and total chaos” under his previous leadership.

In his latest direct intervention in another country’s politics, Trump warned Iraq that if it picked the Iranian-backed Nouri al-Maliki as its prime minister again Washington would no longer help the country.

Washington has been pushing Iraq to distance itself from Iran and sees al-Maliki as too close to Tehran. His last term, which ended in 2014, also saw the rise of the Islamic State group, which seized large swaths of the country.

Maliki, a former prime minister, was nominated to lead Iraq once again, but President Trump said he would cut U.S. support if that went ahead.

By Humeyra Pamuk WASHINGTON, Jan 27 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Tuesday warned Iraq against picking Nouri al-Maliki as its prime minister, saying the United States would no longer help the Middle Eastern country.

Baghdad’s choice of U.S. partners suggests a cautious realignment, but its durability depends on scaling Akkas

President Donald Trump painted a simplistic picture for the US operation in Venezuela: go in, get the oil and start exporting. But Big Oil’s experience in post-invasion Iraq proved that the reality will be far more complicated.