The Washington Examiner magazine discussed the ongoing popular protests in Iraq and said that the summer of 2018 saw similar protests calling for accountability for corrupt elites, but some of them quickly turned into a proxy war between Sadr's leader Moqtada al-Sadr and some PMU factions.

Michael Robin, a former Pentagon official, said in an article published by the newspaper that each side burned the headquarters or targeted embassies that stand next to each other, noting that the 2018 protests eventually subsided after the political agreement. During the formation of the Iraqi government.

But Robin, who is now a resident researcher at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, points out that the agreement is now collapsing, claiming the difference is that what was a proxy war is becoming more serious. He said most of the violence was perpetrated by guards of political parties and insurgents at militia headquarters.

Rubin believes Sadr's followers are ready to fight Badr and Asaib Ahl al-Haq forces close to Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

The Sadrists want the government of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi to make more concessions after the appointment of Major-General Abdul Karim Khalaf as spokesman for the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Although Khalaf is not a follower of Sadr, he does not talk about them negatively. Michael Rubin believes his appointment shows how Abdul-Mahdi is seeking to satisfy Sadr, but "it probably won't be enough."

Rubin quotes Sadr as saying that the bloc "Sairon" supported by the opposition in the House of Representatives (parliament), but it is unclear what the opposition means in the Iraqi concept as long as the regime is a "big tent" within which the various political blocs share the spoils in what Between them, as the author put it.

Accordingly, the withdrawal of the Sadr group from power may necessitate the withdrawal of its members from the government, which will limit its sponsorship of the bloc "Saeron", which is a genuine party in power.

If Sadr's goal, according to Michael Rubin, is to topple the government and wash his hands from its failures, it could portend more instability, especially if it comes with a desire to fight Iranian influence in Iraq through various violent means.

From the writer's point of view, such a response would be because Tehran is unwilling to give up its influence without a fight.

In any case, the current protests in Iraq, and the dangers surrounding them, show the extent to which some forces - described by the writer "malicious" - can kidnap popular movements.