Muqtada al-Sadr and power game in Iraq Analysis by Maxim Petrov

A fragile truce has been established in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, after weeks of violence. Demonstrations, counter-demonstrations, clashes between protesters and security forces, and seizures of government offices have left dozens of people dead and possibly many more wounded in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, where much of the government apparatus is located. The current truce is temporary and unreliable. The political system that emerged after the US invasion in 2003 is now in its deepest crisis.

When the 2014-2015 confrontation between the country's leadership, linked to Iraq's dominant Shiite community (its representatives make up 65% of the population, outnumbering all other political forces in Baghdad and the oil-rich south of the country) and the extremist Sunni-Salafist group ISIS, began, the authorities were able to rally, form a Shiite militia and then defeat the enemy, supported by a number of countries, from the US to Iran. However, the war was hard and lasted several years. Today, the schism has struck the Shiite community itself, which is potentially much more dangerous. Moreover, the divisions have affected minorities - Kurds and Sunnis - and within each community, there are groups oriented towards different Shiite factions and struggling for power on their own.

Since last October's elections, no government has been formed. Iraq's most influential political figure, Shiite cleric Imam Muqtada al-Sadr, has failed to seize power and now seeks to destroy the country's already very conventional political system. Opposing Shiite groups affiliated with Iran, political parties, and militias, on the other hand, are trying to preserve the system, as it has allowed them to dominate Iraqi politics for years.

Al-Sadr's career was built on the legacy of his father and uncle, two particularly revered Shiite religious authorities of his generation. However, his prestige is not built on that alone. The Imam's supporters control many communities in the most impoverished regions of Iraq, supporting the Shiite poor and working class through food distribution. This includes Baghdad's poorest suburb, Sadr City, which has a population of around two million. The combination of religious authority and social support networks has given Muqtada al-Sadr a unique position. Several million Iraqis sympathetic to the Imam are willing to blindly support him, both in the elections and on the streets. Moreover, Sadr can change his political position in any way, which will not deprive him of supporters. He also has a powerful armed brigade. Finally, al-Sadr has largely ensured his popularity through his calls to fight corruption and help the poor. Curiously, his parliamentary bloc, Sayroun, also included representatives of the Marxist-Leninist organisation, the Communist Party of Iraq.

Such an alliance and such support is certainly a lot, but not enough to win the "controlling vote" that would allow Sadr to take the prime minister's chair, the top post in the Iraqi state. His opponents in the Shiite camp, the pro-Iranian Coordination Mechanism (CM) bloc, also have several million supporters and an even more serious armed militia controlling large parts of Iraq. Both rely on different forces among Kurds and Sunnis.

After winning an impressive 73 parliamentary seats (out of 329) in last year's elections, al-Sadr tried to form a coalition with the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Sunni political bloc. However, his rival parties from the CM gathered the votes of their supporters among Kurds and Sunnis, creating a blocking minority in parliament that prevented Sadr and his supporters from forming a government (Iraqi law requires a two-thirds majority - which Sadr was unable to secure). Among the Kurds, al-Sadr was opposed by deputies from the influential Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a largely Iranian-oriented party. As for the Sunnis, they are mostly split between groups affiliated with various Arab patrons from the Gulf countries.

Many events happened in Iraq since then! Militias affiliated to the CM, putting pressure on the Kurdish pro-Sadrist party, attacked and shelled its offices. For their part, the Sadrists have seized the parliament building several times and once took possession of the premises where the Supreme Court is located. Both political forces are demanding new elections. However, al-Sadr intends to hold them under the existing electoral law, while the CM insists on reverting to the previous law, which gives him the upper hand.

On June 15 this year, al-Sadr ordered MPs - his supporters - to resign en masse, hoping either to gain leverage for a last-ditch effort to form a government or force new elections. Rival political factions called it a bluff, and his seats in the Council of Representatives were quickly filled by candidates from Shiite pro-Iranian parties. This was in accordance with Iraqi law: representatives of the parties that were part of the CM came second in their respective constituencies and had full rights to sit in parliament after the Sadrists resigned. To prevent them from forming a government, al-Sadr ordered his followers to launch a sit-in in the Green Zone to block the work of parliament.

But recently an influential cleric in the Shiite community, his father's associate Grand Ayatollah Qadem al-Khaeri, who resides in Iran, dealt a serious blow to al-Sadr's position. He ordered his associates to convey their loyalty to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In addition, he lashed out at al-Sadr for dividing Shiite communities and generally being "unworthy of his family name".

This decision prompted al-Sadr to suddenly announce that he was retiring from politics. However, few believed his words because the Imam had already threatened to do so several times in the past - in 2013 and in 2014. Moreover, immediately after al-Sadr's announcement, his angry supporters attacked the main government palace, triggering a clash between security forces and pro-Iranian militias. The latter said that if the government did not act, "they would bring order to the country themselves". Then the clashes between supporters and opponents of al-Sadr spread to Basra, the largest city in the Shiite south of the country. There is not the slightest doubt that the attack was ordered by the Imam himself, as his supporters do nothing without his instructions.

Then al-Sadr hypocritically asked forgiveness from the Iraqi citizens for the bloodshed and gave a new order to his supporters to leave the Green Zone, which they immediately obeyed. As Bloomberg analysts point out, the events reaffirmed al-Sadr's unique ability to control huge, personally loyal crowds. At the same time, what has happened has shown that the country is on the brink of civil war.

Iraq's post-2003 political system is not working well. According to Transparency International, Iraq is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Political parties have long been the biggest beneficiaries of financial wealth, harnessing a gigantic flow of petrodollars (Iraq is the world's fourth largest oil exporter), while the majority of the population lives in poverty - people have difficulties with jobs, housing, health services, the electricity supply is irregular, and there is a huge drinking water shortage in the south. The country suffers from housing shortages and overcrowding, with many Iraqis with large families living in tiny shacks.

Meanwhile, al-Sadr has no serious credibility among the clergy, especially after the harsh denunciation to which he was subjected by Sheikh Khaeri. The Imam has failed to extend his influence beyond some parts of the Shiite community. Now he says he is withdrawing from politics, but no one believes him. Nevertheless, he remains the most significant political figure in Iraq. But now Sadr insists that the very corrupt system created after 2003 must go.

He has made his name in large part on calls to end corruption and help the poor. However, as Iraqi researcher Hassan al-Sayyed points out in his article for Al-Monitor, al-Sadr is under intense pressure that his affiliated ministries and state institutions are failing to deliver services to Iraqis. The paradox is that the current ministries of the power industry and health, as well as the Central Bank, are linked to Muqtada al-Sadr. The first two entities are among those that most Iraqis find most disturbing. On the other hand, having some control over the country's main financial institution, the Central Bank, al-Sadr is the least of those who would have the right to speak out against a corrupt system. But that is exactly what he is talking about, bringing to mind the "bees versus honey" meme.

Even if new elections are held in Iraq, there is no reason to believe that they will fundamentally change the balance of power in parliament. This means the likelihood of civil war remains high. Al-Sadr may be able to bring down the current political and economic system in Iraq (which is essentially the same thing), but it is unlikely that he will be able to create a new system that is not corrupt.

And the crux of the problem is now a different matter. Just over 40% of the population goes to the polls in Iraq. The vast majority of Iraqis do not trust any incumbent politician. In 2019, powerful social protests swept the country. It was a horizontal movement based on spontaneous, party-independent coordination. It was spearheaded by Shiite youth, about half of whom were unemployed, but the movement then spread to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, mostly in Shiite regions. The protesters made social rather than political demands. They insisted on the provision of basic social services (medicine, electricity, clean water), jobs, and cheap housing. In the city of Nasiriya, protesters burned down the headquarters of all political parties and then marched through the streets chanting, "Nasiriya free of politicians!" The movement also spread among some Sunnis and Kurds, despite the violent repression.

This large-scale protest action, which created something like a system of street committees, was undermined by the COVID pandemic and suppressed by both pro-Iranian militias and Sadrist militias. Iraq's ruling wealthy elites banded together to destroy the grassroots movement, and al-Sadr had a hand in that.

Incidentally, al-Sadr's supporters initially supported the protests, but when their leader saw he could not control them, he sent his militia brigades to suppress them along with pro-Iranian forces. And that is what al-Sadr is all about. He is flesh and blood with the most corrupt system, and while demanding to fight corruption and announcing his retirement from politics, he himself directs crowds of supporters to storm parliament, speaks of his sympathies for the protesting youth, and then disperses them. The constant shifting of positions may not bother his associates much, but he is unlikely to gain the trust of most Iraqis by acting in this way.

Iraq's real problem is not that al-Sadr is quarrelling with his opponents. It is that the majority of Iraqis, extremely frustrated with the country's existing political and economic systems, including parties and parliament, have yet to offer any clear alternative.

The giant wave of social protests and direct impact against the ruling classes and existing regimes that swept across the Middle East in the autumn of 2019, including Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, had similar features everywhere. Some analysts have dubbed it "Arab Spring 2.0". However, unlike the first "Arab Spring" in 2011, the second one primarily put forward social slogans. A third wave is inevitable in the foreseeable future because such campaigns have become part of the Middle Eastern mentality. The question is which slogans and ideas it will support and which structures it will create.