Background and Motivation. Metaphor occupies a central role in political communication, functioning not as a stylistic ornament but as a fundamental cognitive mechanism through which abstract political concepts are structured, understood, and communicated. Despite the growing body of research on conceptual metaphor in political discourse, Iraqi political leadership speech remains underrepresented in systematic cognitive-linguistic analysis. Purpose. This study examines how conceptual metaphors contribute to the construction of meaning, persuasion, and ideological representation in the political speeches of four contemporary Iraqi prime ministers: Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani, Nouri al-Maliki, Haider al-Abadi, and Mustafa al-Kadhimi. Methodology. The study adopts a qualitative, descriptive, and interpretive research design grounded in Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA; Charteris-Black, 2004). The corpus consists of 48 political speeches totalling approximately 36,400 words, collected from authenticated official sources. Metaphorical expressions were identified systematically using the Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP) and its extended version MIPVU (Pragglejaz Group, 2007; Steen et al., 2010). In addition, a Likert-scale questionnaire was administered to 50 Arabic-speaking participants to assess their recognition, comprehension, and evaluation of conceptual metaphors in the target speeches. Findings. Systematic analysis yielded 408 metaphorical expressions classified into five dominant categories: WAR AND CONFLICT (34.8%), JOURNEY AND PATH (24.8%), FAMILY AND KINSHIP (19.1%), DISEASE AND HEALTH (12.7%), and CONSTRUCTION AND BUILDING (8.6%). Questionnaire results confirmed a high overall level of metaphor recognition and perceived persuasive impact among participants (M = 3.87, SD = 0.86). Variation in metaphor profiles across leaders reflected their distinct governance contexts and rhetorical priorities. Conclusions. Conceptual metaphors are pervasive and systematically structured in contemporary Iraqi political discourse. They function to legitimate authority, construct national identity, frame policy challenges, and reinforce ideological positions. The study extends the cross-cultural applicability of CMT to a non-Western Arabic-language context and contributes a methodologically rigorous model for future research in political metaphor analysis.
