Iraqi protest: double play by Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr

Iraq plunges a little more into the unknown every day. The appointment of Mohammed Allawi as Prime Minister on February 1 did not calm popular anger. Mobilized since early October against their leaders and Tehran's control over their country, anti-power demonstrators immediately rejected this 65-year-old former minister, who embodies a "corrupt system" they no longer want.

While the political elite and the protesters remain camped on their positions, the glances are now turned in the direction of the unpredictable Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr, centerpiece of the local political chessboard and inescapable maker of king of the country.

In recent days, the influential religious, adulated by a solid militant base, who sees him as the herald of Iraqi nationalism, has given credit to his detractors who mock his frequent political reversals.

His latest flip-flop directly targets the Prime Minister-designate, whom Moqtada al-Sadr had nevertheless helped to appoint. On the strength of his movement, which represents the first force in Parliament, the Shiite leader threatened, Tuesday, February 11, to "bring down" Mohammed Allawi if the latter, who has until March 2 to form a provisional government, decides to appoint partisan ministers instead of independents.

"We hear that there is partisan and sectarian pressure to form the provisional government, so we are less and less convinced by this government," he wrote on Twitter. "We could deny it and rip them all out by the root."

A way for Moqtada al-Sadr to give pawns to the demonstrators, whose demands he had adopted in full at the start of the protest, even going so far as to put all his political weight to break the government coalition in which he participated ... before to turn their backs on them suddenly.

Pragmatism or opportunism?

On January 24, during anti-American rallies, he called on his very many supporters to leave the ranks of the protest they had massively invested in, having renewed the fight against the presence of American troops on Iraqi soil, his news. priority, after the elimination of the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.

"With displayed versatility, Moqtada al-Sadr tried to pre-empt the dynamics of the protest by taking advantage of the astonishment which followed the elimination of Qassem Soleimani, to demand the departure of the Americans stationed in Iraq", indicates David Rigoulet-Roze , researcher specializing in the Middle East and editor-in-chief of the review "Strategic Orientations".

A week ago, in order to give Mohammed Allaoui a chance, he ordered his militiamen, nicknamed the "Blue Caps", who were supposed to protect the demonstrators at the start of the movement, to reopen schools and administrations closed by civil disobedience. A decision that further fractured the ranks of the protest and provoked bloody clashes between the demonstrators and his supporters. Eight protesters were killed in clashes with Sadrists last week in al-Hilla, south of Baghdad, and in Najaf, a holy city in the south of the country.

Now openly rejected by the challenge which describes him as "criminal" and "opportunist", and implicitly criticized by the great ayatollah Sistani, emblematic figure of Iraqi Shiism, Moqtada al-Sadr decided to calm the game. On Tuesday, he announced the dissolution of the "Blue Caps", as another pledge to the demonstrators, even if the divorce seems consummated between the two parties.

"Moqtada al-Sadr is trying to hold the stick on both sides, in the sense that he is both trying to support the demands of the demonstrators who are demanding change while at the same time refusing to completely exit the political system," explains Imad Harb, director of research and analysis at the Arab Center Washington DC (ACW), in France 24.

"It is a question of its credibility and its legitimacy"

Moqtada al-Sadr has been in an uncomfortable position since the start of a movement that rejects any political or religious tutelage. And this, because of its positioning which wants to be both in opposition, by presenting itself as the slayer of the establishment, and at the same time at the heart of power, by forming and defeating governments.

The head of the Mahdi Army, the militia that fought American troops in the 2000s, finds himself facing a protest movement which is in total rupture with the political elite, which has been forged outside its circles influence, explains to France 24, Adel Bakawan, director of the Center of sociology of Iraq, University of Soran. He is also the author of "The Impossible Iraqi State" (Éditions L'Harmattan).

"For many demonstrators, Moqtada al-Sadr is part of this elite, which he himself demands to leave," he said. After having resisted this political system for a time, he decided to participate in it to the point to become a key player. "

The populist leader, son of the highly respected Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadek Sadr, champion of militant Shi'ism that Saddam Hussein had murdered in 1999, must also spare the influential Iranian neighbor, accused by the demonstrators of having phagocytosed Iraq.

"In reality, Moqtada al-Sadr supported the movement without supporting it, because he knows very well that he must at the same time deal with Iran, where he frequently visits, specifies David Rigoulet-Roze. And c "is also what he did not fail to do, since he probably participated in mid-January in Qom, in the designation of the new Prime Minister, with the backing of the Iranians".

An opinion shared by Imad Harb. "I think that Moqtada al-Sadr is under pressure from the Iraqi allies of Iran, but also from Tehran directly, that's why he tries to play on all fronts, which harms both to his movement and to the contest ".

And to conclude: "It will be difficult for him to continue to navigate between his different postures, he will have to clarify his position and choose his side, and this in the interest of Iraq, because it depends on his credibility and his legitimacy as a political and religious leader. "

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