Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
Since the U.S.-led invasion of
Iraq in 2003, Muqtada al-Sadr has been an unpredictable force to reckon
with — as the U.S. military and the Iraqi government have learned.
After leading a protest that stormed the Iraqi parliament, the 42-year-old Shiite cleric stands to dictate widespread changes to Iraq’s government.
Al-Sadr was able to “demonstrate that you can’t ignore him and he can pierce the corridors of power, literally,” said Michael Knights of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an expert on the cleric. “His objective would be to increase his own clout as a political kingmaker.”
Saturday, hundreds of al-Sadr’s followers stormed the heavily fortified Green Zone, the government center of Baghdad, and broke into parliament, sending politicians fleeing. Order was finally restored later that day.
The unrest raised doubts about the political stability of Iraq and occurred at a fragile moment when the government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is struggling to mount an effective counteroffensive against Islamic State forces occupying the nation’s second-largest city, Mosul.
Al-Abadi had agreed to push for changes aimed at replacing politically connected ministers with non-partisan technocrats as a way to do away with endemic corruption in the government.
Al-Sadr embraced these changes and demonstrated his clout in February by calling for a rally in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square that drew 100,000. Many who attended were impassioned young people angry about corruption and the chronic failure of the government to provide such basic public services as reliable electricity without continual power outages.
“He’s trying to position himself as a good-government advocate,” said Stephen Biddle, professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. “He’s very opportunistic.”
The assault on the government center was in response to parliament’s failure to enact anti-corruption laws.
Al-Sadr’s movement is the latest incarnation for a personality that has played
a leading role in Iraq since 2003. For years after the U.S.-led invasion, his Mahdi Army fought bloody engagements with U.S. troops.
Al-Sadr was born into a family of Shiite scholars, the fourth son of the Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Sadaq al-Sadr, a highly influential cleric who was murdered along with two of his sons in 1999 during the rule of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Muqtada al-Sadr went into hiding until the U.S. invasion and later drew much of his power from those living in the slums of Baghdad, Sadr City, which was named for his father.
Al-Sadr portrayed himself as a nationalistic, anti-American leader who declared solidarity with Arab Sunni insurgents fighting the U.S. Marines in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, according to Ibrahim Al-Marashi, assistant history professor at California State University-San Marcos.
After a stinging defeat in Basra and Sadr City by the Iraqi military with U.S. air support in 2008, Sadr rebranded his militia as the Peace Brigades and turned away from armed violence.
As Iraq’s prime minister struggles to reform his government while fighting the Islamic State militants who fiercely defend Mosul, al-Sadr has “become in some ways the most potent political player during this crisis,” Knights said.
After leading a protest that stormed the Iraqi parliament, the 42-year-old Shiite cleric stands to dictate widespread changes to Iraq’s government.
Al-Sadr was able to “demonstrate that you can’t ignore him and he can pierce the corridors of power, literally,” said Michael Knights of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an expert on the cleric. “His objective would be to increase his own clout as a political kingmaker.”
Saturday, hundreds of al-Sadr’s followers stormed the heavily fortified Green Zone, the government center of Baghdad, and broke into parliament, sending politicians fleeing. Order was finally restored later that day.
The unrest raised doubts about the political stability of Iraq and occurred at a fragile moment when the government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is struggling to mount an effective counteroffensive against Islamic State forces occupying the nation’s second-largest city, Mosul.
Al-Abadi had agreed to push for changes aimed at replacing politically connected ministers with non-partisan technocrats as a way to do away with endemic corruption in the government.
Al-Sadr embraced these changes and demonstrated his clout in February by calling for a rally in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square that drew 100,000. Many who attended were impassioned young people angry about corruption and the chronic failure of the government to provide such basic public services as reliable electricity without continual power outages.
“He’s trying to position himself as a good-government advocate,” said Stephen Biddle, professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. “He’s very opportunistic.”
The assault on the government center was in response to parliament’s failure to enact anti-corruption laws.
Al-Sadr’s movement is the latest incarnation for a personality that has played
a leading role in Iraq since 2003. For years after the U.S.-led invasion, his Mahdi Army fought bloody engagements with U.S. troops.
Al-Sadr was born into a family of Shiite scholars, the fourth son of the Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Sadaq al-Sadr, a highly influential cleric who was murdered along with two of his sons in 1999 during the rule of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Muqtada al-Sadr went into hiding until the U.S. invasion and later drew much of his power from those living in the slums of Baghdad, Sadr City, which was named for his father.
Al-Sadr portrayed himself as a nationalistic, anti-American leader who declared solidarity with Arab Sunni insurgents fighting the U.S. Marines in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, according to Ibrahim Al-Marashi, assistant history professor at California State University-San Marcos.
After a stinging defeat in Basra and Sadr City by the Iraqi military with U.S. air support in 2008, Sadr rebranded his militia as the Peace Brigades and turned away from armed violence.
As Iraq’s prime minister struggles to reform his government while fighting the Islamic State militants who fiercely defend Mosul, al-Sadr has “become in some ways the most potent political player during this crisis,” Knights said.
