We’ll have to see if he can actually deliver any better than Maliki.
Via Fox News:
There is relief in Iraq and among Western leaders Friday as a new prime minister-designate vowed to unite the Iraqi people, and fight corruption and Sunni militants who have overrun large parts of the country.
Incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced late Thursday he won’t seek a third term, making room for new leader Haider al-Abadi, and defusing a political crisis.
In a statement released by his media office Friday, al-Abadi said his Cabinet will be based on “efficiency and integrity, to salvage the country from security, political and economic problems.”
Al-Maliki had insisted for weeks that he should be allowed to serve a third four-year term, as even his fellow Shiites pushed for him to go. “I say to Iraq, I will not be the reason for the shedding of one drop of blood,” the Wall Street Journal reported the prime minister said.
Extremists from the Islamic State group have conquered about a quarter of the country in recent months, as al-Maliki helped mobilize dangerously sectarian Shiite militias to combat the Sunni rebels. Meanwhile, the country’s ethnic Kurds intensified their calls for independence, the Journal reported.
Al-Maliki’s departure ends eight years of tumultuous rule and opens a new political chapter that U.S. officials hope will move Iraq toward a more united front against Sunni militants. If hopes for a peaceful and democratic political transition — the first in Iraq’s modern history— are realized, that may clear the way for more Western aid to Iraq.