The Iraqi demonstrators achieved their first great success, when they forced the Iraqi Prime Minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, to resign, after the killing of 45 civilian demonstrators by the Iraqi security forces in one day. After the news of the resignation spread, Al-Farah replaced the gunfire against the demonstrators in Tahrir Square, which had been the center of the demonstrations since its outbreak two months ago. The departure of Abdul-Mahdi is considered a symbolic victory for the uprising of the demonstrators, but this victory cost the killing of many people, even if the situation reached the stage of the outbreak of a full mass uprising in the Shiite center. And it has proven that Abdul-Mahdi is a weak leader, and that most of the Iraqi ruling elite is very corrupt, and is determined to cling to power to carry out the radical reforms demanded by the demonstrators.
The announcement of the Prime Minister’s resignation came 36 hours after the security forces turned from the killing of members of the protesters to massacres, as 45 people were killed on a bridge in the south of Nasiriyah city, which made the death toll reach 408, in addition to thousands of wounded Since the first of October.
This large number of victims, during eight weeks, can be compared to what is happening in Hong Kong, where only one person was killed, and another died unintentionally, in the protests that started six months ago. The public sympathy for the Hong Kong demonstrators can also be compared to the limited interest in barbaric acts and unprecedented government repression in Iraq. Perhaps the world is accustomed to seeing Iraqis being killed in large numbers, whether by ISIS or the regime of the late President Saddam Hussein, or the US Air Force, so the world no longer considers this type of killing news worthy of attention.
But history is made by massacres that are not muted. A Palestinian told me about the mass killings committed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza decades ago, in which his uncle was killed, by saying that “these killings sow hatred in the hearts.”
Some see violence as affecting Iraqis, but in reality it is redrawing Middle East policy. Since the Iranian revolution in 1979, which is one of the most powerful military and political forces in the region, the strength of the Shiite community has increased under Iranian leadership. The importance of the Iraqi-Iranian alliance became great, because the majority of the Iraqi population is Shiite, and the two countries share a 900-mile border.
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in 2003, Iraq has come under a Shiite-dominated government, which has always worked in union with Iran. And the Iraqi Shiites differ in many aspects from their Iranian counterparts, although the Shiites of Iraq still saw Iranians as their allies against ISIS until recently. In Iraq, there are the most sacred Shiite places, which are Iraqi cities such as Najaf and Karbala, which millions of Iranians visit annually.
But during the past two months, this Iranian-Iraqi Shiite alliance weakened when Iranian-backed Iraqi security forces, as well as militias with the same support, fired on Shi'a protesters, who protested about the lack of jobs they had, in addition to the lack of social services, and corruption Rampant in the Iraqi ruling elite. Initially, these demonstrations were in small numbers, but they increased momentum as a result of the government's exaggerated response, which it initially considered as a small threat.
From the start, there has been little effort to hide Iran's role in organizing repression. Reports appeared in the primitive stage of the demonstrations, talking about the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Qassem Soleimani, who believes that the demonstrations are part of an external conspiracy, and that the best way to deal with them is through repression. Many generals believed that this, i.e. repression, could succeed, but that turned a small amount of discontent into a state of apparent revolution. In the Iraqi case, the protests have become very anti-Iranian.
The result of the rejection and absurd attempts by the pro-Iranian forces in Iraq, aimed at crushing the demonstrators, was perhaps the beginning of a very significant change in Middle East policy, as the previously victorious coalition of Iraqi and Iranian Shiites may have collapsed irreversibly. The Iranians and their Iraqi allies have made many mistakes, destroying the relationship between the two countries in the past eight weeks, more than what Washington did in years of attempts.
The question now is: What is the reason that made Iran's response so great against the demonstrators? The US President Donald Trump's policy of "extreme pressure" did not succeed, but it made the Iranian leadership permanently suspicious of it, subject to conspiracy theories, and in a state of extreme nervousness, and may exaggerate anything, as if it were a threat. Ironically, this feeling of fragility for Iran may be linked to a sense of arrogance, caused by its repeated wars in the region, which culminated in victory.
But these successes led to the generation of a new weakness in the Iranian-led Shiite coalition, which is to achieve an interest in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, by preserving the status quo in these countries, regardless of the injustice, corruption, and inefficiency that results from this situation. In Iraq, for example, the dominant and ruling Shiite class may have been a strong opponent of Saddam Hussein, but it has turned into a group of anti-reform thieves.
Shiite leaders have been rejecting criticism for failing to mobilize the Shiite community's solidarity against the existential threat posed by groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS, but this pretext has lost its influence during the past few years, after ISIS has been eliminated. And in Iraq, the discontent seems deep, because most of the Shiite population wonder about the reason that makes them live with all this unemployment, and they suffer from the lack of water, electricity and services, in a country whose revenues from monthly oil exports reach seven billion dollars.
It is likely that the absence of Adel Abdul-Mahdi will not defuse the demonstrations, because the Iraqi state may have become unable to reform itself.
Patrick Cockburn is a correspondent for The Independent in the Middle East
Fuse for confrontations continues
The alternative for the Iraqi state, rather than reform itself, would be widespread repression, that is, an attempt to crush the demonstrators by killing and arresting them. But this option has failed, so far, because the demonstrators have demonstrated heroic determination and determination to continue to demonstrate, despite being shot with live bullets without using the weapons themselves, although most Iraqi families have the weapon. The demonstrators may see that bearing arms in this crisis will benefit the government, because at that time you will find the justification for using lethal force to suppress the demonstrators. But this state of restraint will not continue indefinitely, and there are many killings that lead to "sowing hatred in the hearts" of many Iraqis, which may not disappear soon.
During the past two months, the Iranian-Iraqi Shiite alliance has weakened, when Iraqi-backed Iraqi security forces, as well as militias with the same support, have shot and killed Shiite demonstrators protesting the lack of jobs they have, in addition to the lack of social services, and endemic corruption. In the Iraqi ruling elite.