Instead of Savaya, Trump is considering assigning Tom Barrack to the Iraq portfolio.
Instead of Savaya, Trump is considering assigning Tom Barrack to the Iraq portfolio.
2026-02-01 00:53
Shafaq News – Washington
Informed sources reported on Sunday that US President Donald Trump is considering assigning the Iraq file to Tom Barrack, instead of the current special envoy Mark Savaya.
Private sources told Shafaq News Agency that the US President has begun considering assigning the Iraq file to Tom Barrack, noting that the latter has extensive experience in Middle Eastern affairs and deep knowledge of the region, but no final decision has been made on this matter yet.
According to the sources, the American objectives in Iraq will remain unchanged, whether the mission continues under Savaya’s leadership or is assigned to Barak, and include confronting Iranian-backed militias.
In the same context, Reuters reported on Sunday morning, citing informed sources, that Mark Savaya no longer holds the position of US Special Envoy to Iraq, noting that there were criticisms related to “mismanagement” in important situations.
According to the agency, one of those sources explained that among the failures attributed to Savaya was his failure to prevent the nomination of former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for the position of the next prime minister, a move that the US president had warned against.
Reuters also quoted a senior Iraqi official and a source as saying that it is believed that Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria, who visited Erbil earlier this week and met with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, will take over the Iraq portfolio at the US State Department.
Last October, the US president decided to appoint Mark Savaya as special envoy to Iraq, making him the third US envoy to the country since Paul Bremer in 2003, and after Brett McGurk during the war against ISIS in 2014.
Savaya stirred up considerable controversy during his tenure due to his writings and statements, as he explicitly called for ending the issue of armed factions and preventing their participation in the government, in addition to issuing warnings to Iraq and cautioning it against the return of what he described as a “spiral of complexity”.
Savaya is an American businessman of Iraqi (Chaldean/Assyrian) descent from Michigan. He rose to prominence in recent years through his support of Trump’s presidential campaign and his activism within Middle Eastern communities in the United States. His lack of prior diplomatic experience made his appointment surprising in political circles, despite Trump’s assertion at the time that Savaya possessed a deep understanding of Iraq and influential contacts in the region.
shafaq.com
