The alliance was created by the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (the at the time largest Shi'a party) to contest in the January 2005 and December 2005 under the name United Iraqi Alliance (UIA; Arabic: الائتلاف العراقي الموحد, romanized: Al-I’tilāf al-‘Irāqı al-Muwaḥḥad), when it included all Iraq's major Shi'a parties.

[1] The component parties contested the 2009 provincial elections separately but later that year started negotiations to revive the list.

In August 2009 they announced the creation of the National Iraqi Alliance for the 2010 parliamentary election, this time without Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party, which formed the State of Law Coalition.

Other important members included the secular Iraqi National Congress led by Ahmed Chalabi and the independent nuclear physicist Hussain Shahristani.

The Iranian government supported their efforts and allowed members of Al-Da’wa to seek exile in Iran.

The Alliance received 4.08 million votes (48.1%) in the election, which gave the bloc 140 seats on the 275-seat Council of Representatives of Iraq.

In March 2005, the Iraqi Turkmen Front agreed to join the UIA’s caucus in the National Assembly.