Reforming Iraq, Resisting Iran, Deposing United States

"[Sadr] insists that he is independent, [and] is sending messages to both the United States and Iran that he will not adopt policies that threaten their interests inside Iraq."
"In the past years, Sadr’s political behavior has varied. He has toned down the critical voice he once used against the United States. He has criticized the United States occasionally, but he hasn’t threatened the U.S. presence in Iraq as part of the international coalition fighting the Islamic State." "Sadr did not even hint at the possible formation of a military force outside the state to resist the United States, as he did in 2004 and 2008. The Mahdi Army has been completely disbanded."
"Sadr does not have a military force fighting in Syria, unlike most Iraqi military factions loyal to Iran. The latter have been fighting inside Syria alongside President Bashar al-Assad’s regime for years now. Sadr, for his part, has opposed the presence of any Iraqi force outside of the country and criticized those defending Assad’s regime, calling on the Syrian president to step down to pave the way for a democracy in Syria."

Ali Marmouri, Iraqi economist

"We have a steady relationship with Iran. [The] Sadrist movement and its partners will not yield to the U.S. will."

"[Iranian Ambassador Iraj Masjedi said] The relations between Iranian officials and Sadr are friendly and brotherly. Many of those officials, including Qasem Soleimani, [head of the Iranian Republican Guard Corps] harbor great feelings of friendship for Sadr."

Dhiaa al-Asadi, director, Sadr's political office

In this photo provided by the Iraqi government, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi (right) and Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr hold a press conference in Baghdad on May 20. Sadr's coalition won the largest number of seats in Iraq's parliamentary elections. AP

The immediate after-effect of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was the cleansing of the Iraqi military of all Sunni Baathist officers. The Iraqi Sunni minority was dismissed as the Shiite majority oppressed under Saddam Hussein was favoured by the leaders of the international forces. It was the embittered Sunni military officers, voided of their authority and positions who ended up as leaders of the Islamic State. Long before that, however, the hateful enmity between the sects was unleashed and death squads of Shiites entered Sunni enclaves in Baghdad to conduct bloody cleansing exercises.

The Sunnis whose hatred for Shiites as 'apostates' was as vehemently deadly in their counter-attacks by their own death squads in Shiite neighbourhoods and blood spilled freely in an orgy of vicious vengeance. Moktada al-Sadr as an influential cleric who had been exiled by Saddam to the Islamic Republic of Iran where relations between the ruling Ayatollahs and the al-Sadrs, father and son were warm,  returned to Iraq to foment violence among his followers against the foreign presence, particularly that of the U.S.

But it was the mass slaughter that took place in Baghdad of Sunnis that al-Sadr engineered through his sermons when he incited followers to embrace their holy duty to attack both Iraqi Sunnis and American forces. His militia was entirely reliant on Iran to supply weapons, his alliance with Teheran's leaders was firm; his dependence on their help and their aspirations to enter Iraq and influence and control its future consolidated an alliance of symbiotic fulfillment.

That was then. Perhaps al-Sadr's revenge exercise satiated his thirst for blood. He has become an anti-corruption campaigner with an "Iraq First" campaign behind him, appealing to most Iraqis sufficiently so to have voted his bloc 54 seats in the recent Iraqi elections, giving him influence though not a majority in the 329-seat Iraqi Parliament. He plans to be the eminence gris behind whoever becomes the prime minister; preferably for him, Haider al-Abadi, the Shiite leader viewed as a moderate, content to partner with the U.S. in its battle against ISIL.

His hatred for the United States is somewhat abated, but not his intention to have it entirely vacate any positions it still maintains in Iraq. His Mahdi militia has been dismissed; he is no longer in the business of terrorism. And nor will he plan to express violence against the American presence given that honour is involved in that official Iraq had invited the U.S. to remain. He will exercise patience until the time is right to excise American presence from Iraq. And while his relations with Iran remain amicable, he will brook no interference in Iraq's official affairs from that source either, it seems.

This, from a theocratic figure of great repute and fiery oration who convened a rogue Shariah court to pass sentence on Iraqi Shiites scorned for their submissiveness toward the American presence in Iraq. Memories remain sharp as well of the slaughter that took place between the security forces and the Mahdi militia. "We have tried the Islamists and they failed terribly", a seasoned al-Sadr noted, dismissing his former militia as an remedy whose time had passed.

This is the man now being recognized by Iraqi communists, social democrats and anarchists who view him now as symbolic of achieving the kind of reform they champion. "Let me be honest: We had a lot of apprehensions, a lot of suspicions. So what if Moktada al-Sadr is now the face of reform? What should I care as long as the reforms happen? He's a man who can motivate millions", declared Raad Fahmi, a leader of the Communist Party of Iraq, now part of Sadr's alliance. "But actions speak louder than words. He's not the same Moktada al--Sadr" (as previously).

REUTERS/Thaier al-Sudani

Iraqi supporters of the Sairoon Alliance celebrate with portraits of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr after the results of Iraq's parliamentary election were announced in Baghdad, Iraq, May 14, 2018

So then, if Sadr's plans are carried through successfully with a coalition that will express his intentions, Iraq will not be controlled by Iran, as has been feared would be the outcome of this protracted exercise in removing a totalitarian murderer from power and replacing him with a sectarian power-sharing administration. The deadly enmity between Iran and Iraq is no more; the devastating war of attrition they fought, history now. 

 

On the other hand, warm relations will continue between the two Shiite-led nations, and Iraq will remain in Iran's orbit of supporters in its Shiite axis.