Reset Intelligence: Who Is Holding Up Iraq’s Budget?
By Reset Intelligence | @EXIT_FIAT
On Tuesday, Iraq’s cabinet again did not vote the 2027 budget. The state newspaper now puts it on Saturday, a month past its legal deadline.
Baghdad’s own financial adviser said the same day that rising oil prices and exports are moving the operating budget toward break-even.
Saturday’s slot
Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi and Kurdistan’s Prime Minister, Masrour Barzani, met in Baghdad on Monday. Al-Zaidi’s media office says they reached “advanced understandings” on five files, among them the Region’s share of the budget and the federal oil and gas law. Erbil holds out for 14.14% of the budget, and Baghdad’s draft gives it 12.67%. A Finance Committee member gives Tuesday, November 17, as the fallback date.
What else moved
• Basra – Iraq’s aviation authority refused landing to the charter carrying Iran’s national football team. An official said Iraq could not risk violating US sanctions on Iranian airlines.
• Arrests – Iraqi media report al-Zaidi has asked his own ruling bloc for authority to arrest armed groups outside the state, and partners warned it could bring the government down.
• Fairford – US prosecutors charged a man they tie to Kataib Hezbollah with steering a September plot on RAF Fairford, the British base where American B-1 bombers were stationed, from a New York jail.
• Tehran – Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Iran’s terms for a deal: “Eventually, you have to eat.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has moved onto a military base over Iranian threats.
• Baghdad’s street – Baghdad’s exchanges closed Tuesday at 169,050 IQD for $100, against the Central Bank’s 152,000.
The question
Iraq wrote its oil law in 2007, and it has still never passed. Why does this budget keep slipping, and who is really holding it up?
That is the short version. Why the budget keeps slipping, what the oil law decides, and what it means for the IQD – that is the daily read.
Read the full daily briefing free for 5 days. Sign up here: the daily Iraqi dinar briefing
Want it straight from the horse’s mouth? The CBI Rate Alert pings you the moment the Central Bank of Iraq moves the official rate. The number itself, not a rumour about it. It comes with our free resource library and the daily breakdown of what is actually moving in Iraq. Sign up free: The CBI Rate Alert
Got a dinar question? Reset Intelligence runs an on-call research assistant: ask it anything they have published. It answers in seconds and will conduct deep research to find you the answer. Try it: the Iraqi dinar research assistant
Common questions, answered straight: When will the Iraqi dinar revalue? and Is the Iraqi dinar revaluation real?
The design behind all of it is mapped in Head of the Snake, and the free guides live in the Iraqi dinar resource library.