Who is Mustafa al-Kadhimi, the new PM-designate in Iraq? Here's a short thread to give some context. Born in 1967 in Baghdad, studied law before being exiled in the UK/US. In 2003-2010, he managed Kanan Makiya’s Iraq Memory Foundation, which documented Baathist crimes. 
Kadhimi is a writer and intellectual, first known to many people as the columnist and editor of Iraq Pulse, at Al-Monitor. His books include "The Iraq Question, Islamic Concerns"; "Ali Ibn Abi Talib: The Imam and the Man"; and "Humanitarian Concerns". See al-monitor.com/pulse/authors/…
In 2016, Kadhimi was appointed as the head of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service (INIS), the most professional intelligence agency in Iraq, with the broadest set of relationships with global intelligence agencies, and Kadhimi practiced intensive "intelligence diplomacy".
While most Iraqi intelligence services focus entirely inwards, INIS devotes a significant portion of its efforts outwards, including to fostering the all-important intelligence exchanges that are the lifeblood of all intelligence communities. INIS is also a diplomatic backchannel
Kadhimi's appointment to INIS (by PM Haider al-Abadi, in the height of international support to the counter-IS fight) was a sign that Iraq sought a broad set of international partnerships, and his nomination as PM is doubling down on this message. Iraq knows it needs help.
Kadhimi is a thoughtful, calculating Iraqi nationalist, more than capable of balancing the realities of Iran's influence as a neighbor against the strategic interests of Iraq. This is exactly what he has done at INIS since 2016 -- working within the margins, but on Iraq's side.
Kadhimi is not a table-thumping tough guy, or a quiet technocrat. He is something inbetween and much more useful to Iraq right now: he can be unyielding, but if the time is right to make a deal, he can be decisive and charismatic. His selection by so many factions underlines this
In March Kataib Hezbollah said Kadhimi's nomination would burn whatever remained of Iraq's stability, linking him to the deaths of Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. If he is ratified between here and the May 9 deadline, he will have overcome the hardest veto imaginable.
If Kadhimi is ratified, Iraq will enjoy significantly more negotiating space in its discussions with the US over economic aid, sanctions waivers, and military support. Later today, I'll hopefully have a piece coming out on the new US-Iraq strategic dialogue, that gets into this.
Throughout this whole PM replacement saga, Kadhimi held the active support of most Iraqi political blocs, but faced a veto from a few. That veto may have dissolved when confronted by a worse threat: a PM candidate not chosen by the Shiite plurality. Time will tell.
