«عَلَى مَا يِجي التِّرْيَاقْ مِنِ الْعِرَاقْ يُكُونِ الْعَلِيلْ مَاتْ»

The saying warns that help which depends on a distant, slow source may arrive only after it has stopped being useful. A remedy, however effective, is worthless if the person who needed it has already died while waiting for it to make the long journey.

More broadly, it criticizes plans or hopes tied to some remote condition that will take a long time to be met. Iraq serves only as a marker of great distance, not as a comment on Iraq itself; the point is that urgency and delay do not mix.

Use it to object when a solution depends on something slow or far away while the need is pressing now. It fits complaints about delayed aid, bureaucratic waiting, or promises that will arrive too late to matter, often with a wry or exasperated tone.