On August 16, as the leading members of Iraq’s government gathered for their weekly cabinet meeting in a high-ceilinged hall of the Republican Palace in Baghdad, one of them made an unusual request. Ali Allawi, the finance minister since 2020, was stepping down, and he wanted to read the full text of his resignation letter aloud. Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi gave his assent.

Allawi, a 73-year-old former banker and Oxford don with an air of owlish gravitas, started off with the usual bureaucratic niceties: a gracious thank-you to the prime minister, an assurance that the country’s finances were in relatively decent shape. But he went on to deliver a comprehensive indictment of Iraq’s political class that may be among the most stinging resignation letters ever written. When future historians write about Iraq’s troubled effort to build an American-style democracy in the early years of the 21st century, Allawi’s letter will provide them with a rare insider’s view of a failing state.

The letter detailed a series of outrageous scams that had been approved or promoted by some of the men around him, who, he said, had helped create a “vast octopus of corruption and deceit” that was poisoning the entire country. The letter built gradually toward a conclusion that was almost apocalyptic in scale. Iraq, Allawi said, was on the point of collapse, facing “a crisis of state, society, and even the individual.” The problem was not just dishonest leaders, but the entire system put in place by the Americans two decades earlier. “I believe,” he said, “we are facing one of the most serious challenges that any country has faced in the past century.” 

It took a full half hour to read the letter, and Allawi was met with stunned silence. No one had expected a self-effacing elder statesman like Allawi—the author of several critically acclaimed books—to produce such a blunt jeremiad. Although it made news in Iraq, the episode went almost unnoticed elsewhere and was eclipsed later in August by the outbreak of violence: Two Shiite factions squared off in Baghdad, leaving dozens dead. The country has been rudderless since the last round of elections a year ago, with negotiations to form a new government going nowhere.

In Western capitals, Allawi’s resignation was greeted with dismay. Before he returned to Iraq in mid-2020, Allawi had been one of the loudest voices warning about corruption in the country, and he was widely seen as an avatar of financial integrity and competence. I spoke with him at length while reporting an article on Iraqi corruption that was published later that year. His grasp of the subject, and his anger about it, impressed me.