On February 8, two influential men, one prominent Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and the other Iranian military leader General Ismail Qaani, both Shia, met to discuss the future of Iraqi politics and Iran’s dominant role in it. It did not go well. .
According to a Reuters report published on Wednesday, August 24, 2022, the meeting was held at the home of Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr, who fought with American forces during the years of the US occupation of Iraq and has millions of loyal supporters. throughout the country with a majority of Shiites, some of whom are members of armed groups.
As for Qaani, he is the commander of the Quds Force, a branch of the Revolutionary Guards that is responsible for military and intelligence operations outside the borders that Tehran’s Shiite regime uses to establish its hegemony outside the borders and Tehran is responsible for maintaining. Its influence in Iraq
According to four Iraqi and Iranian officials who were aware of the details of the half-hour interview in the city of Najaf, Sadr received the Iranian leader with apparent coldness.
Moqtada al-Sadr usually wore a black and white southern Iraqi kifi and a brown cloak in a deliberate local style, which contrasted with the all-black clothes and Shiite turban he usually wears on public occasions.
Officials said al-Sadr’s garb conveyed a nationalistic political message that, in short, was that Iraq would go its own way as an independent Arab state without interference from its Persian neighbor, despite sectarian relations between the two countries.
According to one official, al-Sadr challenged the Iranian leader and said: “What does Iraq’s politics have to do with you? … We don’t want you to interfere.”
The Iranian government did not respond to the requests sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its delegation in the United Nations.
Officials said Moqtada Sadr was buoyed by a sense of confidence after a series of political gains by his nascent Iraqi coalition (Saving a Homeland) against Iran and his Iraqi Shiite supporters like him, but they see Tehran as the best. United to maintain power and control the influence of the Supreme, both from the West and from the Sunni Arab countries.
Despite al-Sadr’s efforts to remain outside the realm of party politics, and despite his reluctance to carve out a position for himself, he has been a decisive force in Iraq for the past two decades since the American invasion and the overthrow of Saddam. Hossein.
In addition to dominating the ballot box through the masses of Sadri voters, he was able to install his assistants in important ministries and other top government jobs, ensuring that he consolidated his control over a large part of the country’s joints.
In 2019, Moqtada Sadr’s supporters joined anti-corruption protests that led to the overthrow of a government led by parties allied with Iran. And last October, his supporters outperformed those parties in parliamentary elections, opening the door to a government that could completely remove Iraq from Iran’s orbit. Hence the visit of Qaani.
People familiar with the meeting said that the leader of Iran was worried. And he sought a meeting for months and kept visiting Iraq and on one occasion openly prayed at the grave of Sadr’s father.
Iranian officials quoted Qaani as saying that if Moqtada Sadr included Tehran’s allies in any coalition, Iran would consider Sadr as the main Shiite political figure in Iraq, a small gesture among the divided Shiite leadership.
Al-Sadr is still steadfast and after the meeting he tweeted his commitment to a government free from foreign interference. In this written message that was scanned on Twitter, he said: “Neither East nor West… a national majority government.” This retreat was much more than a failed meeting.
In the months that followed, neither Moqtada Sadr and his allies nor the Iran-aligned parties formed a coalition to replace the interim government led by Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kazemi, the consensus government candidate until parliament approved a new government to replace it. Him.
Rising tensions between Iran-aligned factions and Sadr’s armed faction led to at least five targeted killings between the two camps in a two-week period last February.
Moqtada al-Sadr’s efforts to counter and defeat Iran’s maneuvers prompted Iran and its proxies to mount a political and military counterattack, including missile attacks on potential allies that al-Sadr wanted: the Kurds in northern Iraq and the UAE authorities.
Moqtada Sadr’s frustration due to the stalemate and Iran’s pressure reached such an extent that he ordered his current representatives in the parliament, which were 73 representatives or nearly a quarter of the parliament members, to leave the parliament in June. . In July–August, he led thousands of his supporters in a long sit-in at the Council.
In a general statement, he said: The first step for repentance is to hold our corruptors accountable publicly, hence, as the father (Razesh Harmat) called for repentance from some sections of the society at that time, such as men. Civil servants, gypsies and others, I call on the political factions, especially the Shiites, to repent to God Almighty and hold their corruptors accountable under the punishment of an impartial judiciary that is not politicized and does not fit corruption and corruptors.
Moqtada Sadr’s diet worries many who fear the current tension will fuel more unrest and possibly more violence inside Iraq and across the Middle East.
Janine Hennis Plaschart, the UN Secretary-General’s special representative in Iraq, told Reuters in a statement: “If we want stability in the Middle East, it will not happen as long as there is general unrest and power struggles.” in Iraq, which will then become an arena for regional competitions.”
Inside Iraq, the prospect of renewed bloodshed frightens many, the US invasion of this century and the long war with Iran of the last century still fresh in their minds.
“Al-Sadr could lead us to a Shia-on-Shia war,” said a commander of an Iranian-allied militia in southern Iraq, where fighting between rival groups intensified and killed shortly after the February meeting.
Reuters spoke to more than 40 Iraqi and Iranian officials, politicians, foreign diplomats and local residents to better understand the instability in Iraq.
Some officials, including those who described the meeting between Moqtada Sadr and Qaani, spoke on condition of anonymity.
The news agency also reviewed dozens of government documents detailing judicial decisions, government spending, and corruption investigations, pointing to the impoverished south, where most Shiites live, and where residents say the crisis is rooted in problems with graft and corruption. Intensifies institutional neglect, he moved.
“There is a political battle going on in Baghdad and we are stuck in the middle of it,” said Walid al-Dahmat, a teacher in the impoverished southern city of Amara and the brother of a local activist who was killed by unidentified gunmen. 2019.
Moqtada al-Sadr, 48, first rose to fame as the son of Mr. Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, the Iraqi historical figure who helped lead the Shiite resistance against Saddam. The father and his two sons were shot dead in 1999 in an ambush widely believed to have been orchestrated by Saddam’s government.
Moqtada Sadr, himself a prominent young cleric at the time, inherited the loyalty of many of his father’s followers. After the US invasion in 2003, Iraqi Shiites struggled to break out of Sunni rule during the years of Saddam’s rule. Sadr had good relations with Iran.
With Tehran’s help, advisers and former diplomats say he has succeeded in presenting himself as a populist leader fighting to expel Western aggressors. In Muqtada al-Sadr, he saw thousands of militants, many of whom still form the armed faction of al-Sadr, known as Saraya al-Salam, as their leader.
Shiites seized power in Baghdad in 2005 and won a majority in the first parliamentary elections under US occupation. As Shia parties consolidated their dominance in subsequent elections, many Iraqis increasingly viewed their governments as corrupt and focused solely on controlling the oil wealth and patronage they provided.
“This political system has failed,” said Mohammad Yasir, a veteran Shiite activist in southern Iraq. They did nothing.” Since most of those governments were allied with Iran, Moqtada Sadr gradually distanced himself from Tehran.
“We are also Arabs”
Eager to emphasize his movement’s freedom from corruption, he encouraged his supporters to organize mass protests, which paved the way for the demonstrations that toppled the last Shiite coalition in 2019. Those led by the Sunnis.
In 2017, Muqtada al-Sadr surprised many in the region by meeting with senior officials of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, Sunni countries allied with the United States. Sadr played on ethnic relations to circumvent the historical differences between the Sunni and Shiite regimes.
“We are also Arabs,” he told them.
Moqtada Sadr made his first public criticism of Iran that year, accusing it in a statement of fueling sectarian conflicts in Syria, Iraq and across the region. He has also stepped up criticism of his domestic rivals over Shiite influence, including former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, a close ally of Iran.
As one former adviser told Reuters, “Mr. Moqtada Sadr wants to be the leader of the Shiites and the number one king of Iraq.”
In 2020, two events led to changes in Sadr’s outlook.
The first was when the United States killed Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of Iran’s Quds Force and one of Iraq’s key players, in a drone strike. Despite his criticism of Tehran, Soleimani had a strong relationship with Sadr. After that, the UAE established diplomatic relations with Israel, which strengthened the shift in some Arab countries towards the West.
These developments were in favor of Sadr. For example, his post-election contacts with his Gulf neighbors helped him endear himself to Iraq’s Sunnis. Iraqi officials familiar with the operation told Reuters that representatives of the UAE had asked the Sunni parties to try to reach an agreement with the Sadrians.
Moqtada Sadr is also close to the Kurds, the self-governing ethnic minority in northern Iraq. Shortly after the election, the Sadris and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the ruling party of the region, told local media that they would work together to form a new government. For Iran, this alliance was a double defeat, especially since the ruling Kurdistan Party also has friendly relations with Israel.
“Wait for many hardships”
Before the meeting between Sadr and Qaani, some of Iran’s allies decided to express their displeasure at any distance from Tehran.
On February 2, an unidentified Shia group based in southern Iraq carried out drone attacks on Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE.
The faction known as the “Haqq Brigades” said the attacks were in response to the UAE’s intervention in Iraq and Yemen, which is witnessing intense civil war between regional actors led by Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The UAE announced at the time that it had stopped these attacks. But according to an Iraqi government official, a Western diplomat and two Iraqi Sunni leaders who were working with UAE representatives in coalition talks, the attack scared the Emiratis. The UAE has sent officials to Tehran and Baghdad to reduce tension.
Jabouri, a Sunni leader involved in efforts to form a government, noted that Emiratis’ commitment to Sadr has wavered. Sadr met and met with me the following week.
Three days after this tense interview, several of his advisors told Reuters that Moqtada Sadr had summoned his aides to his home. They added that he was clearly frustrated by the escalation and even returned to smoking, an old habit he had given up and never did in public.
As one of the advisers, whose account of this meeting coincided with the report of two senior officials familiar with the meeting, said: “Hazrat Seyed told the audience: Our opponents are not the only ones who oppose the rule of the national majority.” But our opponent is now a neighboring country, so they expected a lot, there will be difficulties and obstacles in the coming days and we all have to rely on God to deal with the huge pressures that are imposed on us now and in the coming days. “
Iran got a boost from Iraq’s judiciary, which is largely controlled by judges appointed by pro-Tehran parties.
Days before parliament was scheduled to vote on a new president, Iraq’s Supreme Court issued a ruling requiring a two-thirds majority. For the formation of the Council, this ruling prevented the voting planned by the “Saving the Motherland” coalition, whose simple majority is no longer even enough to hold a Council meeting.
After that, the court issued a series of other rulings. One blocked the way for Hoshiar Zibari, the coalition’s preferred presidential candidate, due to longstanding corruption charges. Zibari, a Kurdish politician and former Minister of Finance and Foreign Affairs, denies any wrongdoing and has not been convicted of any crime.
Another ruling slowed an embezzlement investigation that the Sadrs were conducting with Iranian-allied officials. The third law prevented the KRG from dealing directly with foreign oil companies, targeting an important source of revenue for its coalition partner.
While legal experts and sources familiar with Iraqi political insiders say that the rulings, although legally sound, were issued at a strategically important time.
Source: Lebanon Debate
