Iraq News Now

Fresh bouts of violence erupted in Iraq since the last week of August when Muqtada al-Sadr – a prominent Shia cleric and founder of the Sadrist Movement – announced his resignation from politics. Sadrist Movement secured maximum seats (73 out of the 329-seated Council of Representatives) in the October 2021 elections. This meant that its leader, al-Sadr, required extra 92 seats to form a majority government, however, despite aligning with the minority Sunni and Kurdish parties, al-Sadr’s inability to secure 165 seats prompted his decision to resign.

Meanwhile, the Coordination Framework, an umbrella bloc of Iran-backed Shia parties, which is mostly united by their opposition to Sadrist Movement, has already secured over 130 seats and by further co-option may be able to secure extra 35 seats required to form a majority government. However, al-Sadr’s insistence on dissolving the parliament and thereby call for an early election, a step which has not been legally ascertained, irked the Coordination Framework, and this led to violent clashes from both sides.

These violent episodes have once again exposed Iraq’s fractured political system, its fragility and compounding problems which have not been stabilized since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, which led to the ouster of Saddam Hussain. Thenceforth, Iraq’s two-decade long experiment with building a democratic structure has failed.

There are four distinct reasons for this failure: One, since 2003, no ruling elite has been able to manage to overcome the deep confessional, ethnic and social division in the country thus contributing to failure of nation building in Iraq.

Two, the country could not safeguard itself from being a battleground for the US and Iranian influences. Iranian Qud’s Forces Commander Major General Qassem Soleimani and Kata’ib Hezbollah leader Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis’s assassination by a US drone strike in January 2020 in Baghdad, is a classic example of Iraq being caught up in the ‘tug of war’ between the US and Iran.

Three, Baghdad did not invest sufficiently in economic and political reforms and was unsuccessful in meeting the demands of common masses in addressing their basic requirements for sustainable living. And finally, advent of ISIS, which further disrupted the development process in the country.

Concomitantly, al-Sadr’s reform and revolutionary ideas resonated with the demands of the masses, especially with the poverty-ridden Shia, Sunni and Kurds. Notably, sectarian divides notwithstanding, Iraqi society suffers majorly from social stratification and intra-Shia disunity.

Muqtada al-Sadr, through his ultra-nationalist agenda; reform activities, pledge to address political and social corruption, and his inter-connection with the common masses, became a popular figure to safeguard Iraqi society.

Furthermore, al-Sadr’s resolution to ban Popular Mobilization Force (PMF), Iraq’s state-sponsored paramilitary force unit which employs 67 different armed factions most of whom are Iran-backed militias and were the most effective groups against ISIS. However, later on, Former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi legitimized these militia groups by forming PMF which also included Iraqi state soldiers. Allegedly, later on the same PMF was used by Iraqi state to cull peaceful protests in the country during 2018, 2019 and 2021.

Notably, it was alleged that it was PMF that planned assassination of then Prime Minister now Caretaker Prime Minister Mustafa al-Khadimi in November 2021. Therefore, the protests of 2019 and 2021 also concentrated on banning of PMF and al-Sadr’s resolve to ban them further brought him closer to the people.

Al-Sadr was thus perceived as a Messiah who could liberate the country from the shackles of foreign interferences, poverty and inequality, and from all the despair that engulfed the Iraqi society. In short, he was perceived as a leader who could address these underlying challenges and could contribute to nation-building process in the country. A leader that Iraq did not have for the past two decades.

However, there is a caveat to it, al-Sadr is a religious leader and does not have much political experience and thus while he rules in the streets of Baghdad, al-Sadr is not a popular figure in the parliament and amongst the political elites.

Nevertheless, Baghdad’s challenges are far beyond al-Sadr’s resignation. Apart from overwhelming international, regional and domestic challenges, Iraqi political system remains destabilized and still in transitory phase. The country’s political transformation from a constitutional monarchy under British Mandate to a federal democratic parliamentary republic has not been fully realized. Passing through six phases, Iraq has seen as many as 79 prime ministers up until now, which suggests that there is a severe leadership crisis in the country.

At this point in time, Iraq does not need a Messiah who would eradicate all its problems at once, but an able and astute leadership that can choose a middle path and believe in co-option for the larger good of the country. Until and unless that happens, Iraqi political atmosphere is likely to remain unstable.

New Delhi imports over 16.1 per cent of its total energy requirements from Baghdad alone. Energy dependence on Iraq increased since 2018 when the US withdrew from Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and imposed sanctions on Iran. Additionally, an estimated number of 15,000-17,000 Indians reside in Iraq and over 40,000 visit Holy places such as Najaf and Karbala annually. Thus, continued violence poses a human security threat on Indian expatriates residing in the country. With Russian invasion on Ukraine affecting the oil prices, importing from Iraq has been a tenable option for India. Thus, an unstable Iraq is detrimental to India’s energy security aspirations.

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Views expressed above are the author's own.

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