Iraq’s Man in the Middle

Every Iraqi prime minister since the fall of Saddam Hussein has inherited the same impossible job: Convince Washington that Iraq is not slipping entirely into Iran’s orbit while convincing Tehran that it is not becoming an American outpost. Iraq’s new prime minister now faces that challenge under the most trying of circumstances. The United States and Iran are at war—and Iraq sits between them. When I met with Ali al-Zaidi during his visit to Washington, D.C., last week, which included an Oval…