“Political chaos in Iraq” may seem an evergreen story, but the past month has been particularly tumultuous in Baghdad. When the price of oil was high, Iraqi officials could prioritize political expediency above fundamental reforms. For years, Iraqi officials privately acknowledged that every Iraqi ministry was overstaffed by a factor of ten, but such bureaucratic bloat was a good way to pay salaries and dispense patronage. (To be fair, this was not a new phenomenon, but also existed under Saddam and before)

From the start of his term, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi understood the problem and was setting in motion more serious reform, albeit in a very slow and at times indecisive manner. Anyone who has ever met Abadi knows that he is an extremely talented man with a technocrat’s grasp of the issues and a deeper understanding of economics and the inner-workings of government than any of his predecessors. He is handicapped, however, by his own rise to power: Iraqi elections are conducted by the party list. Because Nouri al-Maliki was the party leader constructing the list, every Da`wa member of parliament owes their political fortunes to him, rather than Abadi. Throw into the mix the factional divisions between the London and Tehran factions of Da’wa, and Abadi is extremely weak within his own party.

Abadi has been on the right track to try to reform but late last year he fumbled when he had an opportunity — a combination of public protests and support by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani for the notion of reform. More recent efforts to shuffle the cabinet to reflect ability rather than political patronage have similarly fumbled, albeit for different reasons. Shi‘ite firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr has, meanwhile, sought to exacerbate the crisis by casting himself an anti-corruption campaigner, never mind that his true record is quite the opposite. The problem is not just intra-Shi‘ite. In recent weeks, efforts to unseat Parliamentary Speaker Salim al-Jabouri have resulted in political paralysis, especially as Jabouri has worked to shut down parliament to prevent any further action on his position. The Kurds, meanwhile, remain disproportionately focused on their own political rivalries.

Personalities matter in politics. Within Iraq, politics can be a full contact sport, and personal animosities run deep. If political crises seem to be getting more acute in Iraq, it may be because the two Iraqi politicians who most often served as mediators are no longer on the scene. For years, Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish politician-turned-Iraqi president would meet and negotiate with almost anyone. Talabani was a fluent Persian, Kurdish, Arabic, and English speaker and had a gregarious personality. In 2012, however, a stroke incapacitated him. Despite a long convalescence in Germany, he never recovered. He has returned to Iraq but has trouble speaking and moving, and he may be incapacitated in other ways as well.

Then, there was Ahmad Chalabi, who passed away last November. Scapegoat for U.S. intelligence failure and vilified within U.S. policy circles more for domestic American political reasons than reality, he never gained the popularity he hoped among the Iraqi electorate but still maintained an indispensable role, not only for his technocratic understanding of Iraq’s economy but also because he was the one individual who could talk to all factions within Iraq. Whenever a political impasse loomed inside Iraq, it was often Chalabi to whom factional leaders would quietly turn. Those in U.S. policy circles and the military who sought to cut him off did themselves more harm than they did to Chalabi. Ignoring Chalabi was to shut off insight into the reality of Iraq and the backroom political negotiations that define its political culture.

Did Chalabi pivot and turn during his political career? Certainly (as did some of his fiercest critics both on questions of Iraq and Iran). Chalabi was a political survivor. Was he an Iranian agent? No, although he advocated dialogue. Did he meet with unsavory Iranian officials who had blood on their hands? Absolutely, as did Jalal Talabani and Masoud Barzani, whom U.S. officials dealt with and partner with regularly. Was he corrupt? Some in his entourage certainly were, and their misdeeds tarnished a man whose greater fault may have been not to crack down. Regardless, it is notable that it was Chalabi’s cousin and U.S. military and CIA darling Ayad Allawi whose name showed up in the Panama papers. But, whatever Chalabi’s faults, he was a problem solver at a level above his peers.

There may still be a solution to the current impasse, and Iraqis might stumble toward it—even as garbage piles up from unpaid municipal bills and polarization grows. But for a decade or more, American diplomats and officials wished Chalabi away. As the current crisis worsens, they may finally see what even Chalabi’s Iraqi detractors understood: He was repeatedly in his career the finger in the dike preventing a deluge of political chaos.