LAURENT VAN DER STOCKT FOR "THE WORLD"
StoryAfter having failed to lead the great Iraqi popular protest movement, the Shiite leader Moqtada Al-Sadr has multiplied political reversals. His strategic failures and hesitations in the face of Tehran have weakened him on the Iraqi scene while destabilizing his followers.
Since October 2019, Abdallah returns only in the middle of the night to the modest family home located in a bumpy alley from Sadr City in the suburbs of Baghdad, brightened up with colorful pennants and portraits of Shia Imam Ali. Once their administration courses at university are over, the 23-year-old Iraqi, wearing a gel puff and wearing "slim" jeans like all young people of his age, spends several hours with the protesters in Tahrir Square demanding the "Fall of the regime". Even when it is raining tear gas canisters and bullets. Even when Moqtada Al-Sadr posts angry Tweeters to criticize the turn of the movement or to urge his supporters to leave the sit-in.
Abdallah began to follow the orders of the populist Shiite leader and the directives relayed by his cadres to Sadr City at the age of 15. But the "October Revolution" tested its loyalty, as well as that of many Sadrists of its generation who married, body and soul, this broad protest movement from the underprivileged Shia neighborhoods of Baghdad and the south of the country. A self-proclaimed nationalist and reformist cantor, who in 2018 became the country's first political force thanks to his base of several million marginalized Shiites, Moqtada Al-Sadr only gave the movement half-hearted support, without ever succeeding in take the lead.
Protesters demand overhaul of the political system established after the American invasion of 2003 and renewal of the political class
One foot in power, another in the opposition: this strategy has shown its limits in the face of increasingly radical demands. Because what the protesters claim is nothing less than the overhaul of the political system established after the American invasion of 2003 and the renewal of the political class, including mismanagement, corruption, confessionalism and submission to interference Foreigners – especially from Iran – are seen as so many causes of state bankruptcy. "Moqtada Al-Sadr was never a revolutionary, analyzes expert Renad Mansour in a note for the Chatham House think tank. He wants to carve out a role for itself both as a spoiler and as a stabilizer in order to maximize its political influence. This strategy aims to preserve the political system, not to overthrow it. Forced to choose between the two roles, he opted for the second. "
