As the man now charged with halting Iraq’s implosion, Iraq’s prime minister designate, Haider Al-Abadi, who was nominated to succeed Nouri Al-Maliki in mid-August,evidently has a tough job on his hands; in his own words, posted to his Twitter feed on 16 August, “the road ahead is not one paved with roses”. International opinion seems thus far to have fallen in support of Abadi, not least because he has the benefit of not being his predecessor Maliki, whose concentration of power during his two terms in office has been hugely damaging.