last Saturday was not an ordinary day in the history of the Iraqi political process, and in Interestingly evolution, the supporters of Muqtada al – Sadr stormed heavily fortified Green Zone through its key gates and tore down the concrete wall surrounding it and arrived to the headquarters of the Iraqi Council of Representatives and broke into the main hall, and destroyed its furniture and contents, as well as many of MP and official’s cars, and attacks on a number of MPs in the Iraqi House of Representatives. and camped out next to it .
The reason for the occurrence of this intrusion was the failure of the Iraqi parliament to complete the reshuffle, which was supposed to be submitted on Saturday by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. This intrusion was taken place after less than one hour on the statement of the leader of the Sadrist movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, in which he has attacked the government and the House of Representatives and the system of sectarian quotas in the distribution of ministerial portfolios, noting that the Green Zone is the most heavily fortified areas in Iraq, as it includes the headquarters of the House of Representatives and the government and the presidency of the republic and 22 diplomacy Mission, including the US and British embassies.
It seems that the crisis has been started after informing the Alharar bloc «Liberal» that the list of new candidates to the ministry, which was supposed to be provided by the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to the House of Representatives on Saturday included personalities affiliated to political parties, . And it explained that the list included of five ministerial portfolios and they are oil, transport, trade, industry and reconstruction. It pointed out that «Abadi faced pressure following the demand of the blocs of the Kurdistan Alliance and the National Forces Alliance not to touch the respective ministers in the government and refused to replace them by others, which raised the anger of Alahrar bloc».
And the House of Representatives enterd so in a new crisis after failing to reach a quorum for the meeting because of the boycott of the bloc of protesters totaling 90 deputies .the Council announced the postponement of its sessions until the tenth of this month, amid a rally of thousands of followers of the Sadrist movement around the Green Zone.
Muqtada al-Sadr announced at a press conference from his home in Najaf yesterday the boycott of any political process that includes any kind of quota system types saying ” I refuse association with any politician whatever his demands are without radical reform”. And he added «I wait for major popular uprising and the People’s Great Revolution, and there are two options in front of people either to keep the quotas or dropping the entire government», then decided he decided to stay in seclusion for two months « as an expression for rejection of quotas and corruption, and condemnation to the negligence of some of the popular classes». Alsadr decided to stop the political work in all aspects of the Sadrist movement, and excluded the political work to form across-Sectarian Bloc bloc , called Alhrar bloc «Liberal» affiliated to him to boycott parliamentary sessions «with quotas», adding that «the prime minister is under great pressure from political forces ». And video clips shoed yesterday that hundreds of protesters as they sit in the halls of Parliament and others walking around inside the Green Zone and cross the suspension bridge for the first time in 13 years.
Three presidencies , and a number of leaders of political blocs in Iraq have been condemned the storm of the House of Representatives by the protesters and the attack on a number of its members, and described it as the grave trespass on the state prestige .A statement of the Iraqi President Fuad Masum stated that the presidencies and the leaders of the blocks saw at the end of a meeting they held on Sunday that what happened is a flagrant breach to the constitutional framework that calls for the prosecution of the assailants in front of the justice, stressing the support for the assembled security forces, and urged it to carry out its responsibility in the maintenance of public security for citizens and protect the institutions of any transgression from any party whatsoever. He called on participants to adopt a law and constitutional contexts in imposing the rule of law and the prestige of the state And on his part, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al – Abadi called for the prosecution of those who have broken the law among the demonstrators. Haidar al – Abadi Office in a statement said today that ” the Prime Minister directed the Minister of Interior Mohammad Al Ghabban to prosecute elements who attacked the security forces and members of the House of Representatives and damaged public properties , and bring them to justice to receive their just punishment.”
The head of the “Uniting for Reform” Osama Najafi he accused Abadi for the responsibility to break into the green zone by thousands of demonstrators. Najafi said What was happened indicates to the number of facts that should stand on it with purpose to address it rather than being rotated on a vicious circle that does not only lead to the “destruction of Iraq and striking its unity and stabbed the goals of its people. “for its part, the Kurdish blocs in the Iraqi parliament today condemned the storming process of the parliament on Saturday, saying it would take other position on these events . Kurdish blocs stressedv that these acts show that there is a partisan and personal agenda behind it, noting that it would review participation in the political process in Iraq. The Iranian regime and across sites close to the Revolutionary Guards demanded Moqtada al-Sadr to retire from political work and to be devoted in full-time study, this means that the Iranian regime is upset by its supporters to storm the Green Zone. Moreover, this intrusion is a source of great inconvenience to the American administration, since adversely affect its war against the state regulation especially as its ally in Baghdad, Haider al-Abadi began to lose control of them. According to the American administration and due to the strong sectarian Shiite domination on the nature of political and government work in Iraq, the storming of the parliament did not only cause the outbreak of violence that has left behind the victims, but the demonstrators acknowledged that the security dealing with them was not tough, with the widespread of the popular crowd militias in sensitive points surrounding Baghdad to protect those sit-ins from Daash attacks, which reveals that the sectarian forces in Iraq want fencing the battle by sectarianism as if they are battles of the Shiites and among them on all of Iraq.
In this context, observers of the Iraqi affair raises several questions: What is the forthcoming US role in this crisis? Do the US administration will respect the Iraqi will rebelling against the forces of corruption and mafias of thefts and abhorrent sectarian quotas parties who abused for Iraq and the Iraqis and looted the treasury of Iraq funds, and do stand in full impartial from what is going on being an internal affair of the Iraqi House or whether it would re-arrange its cards in another suit, according to shifts and new data on the ground reality in Iraq? Do the US administration exert pressure on the Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to form a real government of technocrats from professional people independents who have high efficiency, not tied to the parties of the power nor receive orders from the heads of political blocs who dominate by their influence and Militias on political decisions, to absorb the resentment of the Iraqi street, resentfuland angry for what goes on behind the scenes of politicized trade deals between the political blocs hunting in the dirty waters of politics?
Or is the US administration will change its approach and programs and political tactics in Iraq in order to avoid international criticism and the anticipation of what might happen from the crises and conflicts and divisions that come out from the expectations circle and put it in critical situation? Here will be the supposed question: Do the US administration will sacrifice for the current government and conduct real negotiations with representatives of the Iraqi will of national and political independents and leaders of the organization from civilians and protestors and organizers of the revolutionist masses from all components of the Iraqi people to apologize for what happened and what is happening because of its arrogant and wrong policy in Iraq, and start a new page of diplomatic relations marred by rationalization and respect and non-interference in the internal policy and sovereignty of Iraq, or is the US administration has another answer that does not disclose it apparently, and will not abandon the Iraqi taste good cake no matter what is the price, and will not give up its policy of fishing with two hooks ?!
Because of the current political crisis in Iraq, which the intrusion process is the Last expected consequences , especially since Muqtada al-Sadr pointed out that in his previous statements as Moqtada al-Sadr assisted by the Street to resolve the differences with political opponents, especially in light of standing his rival, former prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki behind the sit-ins of the Representatives at the headquarters of the House of Representatives. This sit-in is designed to confuse and mix the papers and terrifying the political parties of the collapse of the political process until they accept the to continue the quota system to form a government. But the immediate aim was to thwart the announcement of a government dominated by al-Sadr movement on the most prominent ministries. Especially after an agreement achieved between Muqtada al-Sadr and Haider Abadi, based on a promise to end the sit-in in the Green Zone of the Sadrist movement against for six portfolios and notably are , Finance, Planning , electricity, justice, and culture.
For its part, the Presidency of the political body of the Sadrist movement said that alahrar bloc will continue to suspend its work until the correction of the path of the political political process and the completion of the reforms demanded by the protesters. The political body added in a statement that the storm of the green zone and the building of the Iraqi Council of Representatives by the protesters is only a warning message to parties that are “blinded from seeing the truth” , indicating that the reason for everything that happened is the “confusion and turmoil” that gripped the political process, and ignoring “the people’s demands, and” persistence “in the consecration of the failure of poor management of state institutions. The Commission emphasized in its statement of its rejection any attack against any sacred human being and terrifying the safe or any aggression on the the public state property and private property and any attempt to deviate the efforts of the reform from its noble objective .
Iraq is today a recipe of absolute failure that the political elite who rule it does not stop of engineering of it . there is no doubt that the searcher for the headlines describing the Iraqi catastrophe are located on the forefront by disastrous title for the replacement of Saddam Hussein with a number of small divided dictators . While it was allowed to criticize of the US occupation, and among the worst deeds of US is to hand over the rule of Iraq to such bad ones , it has become clear that the hidden function of exaggeration in this criticism, when issued by the rulers of Baghdad, but rather divert attention from themselves and lift their responsibility for what they alone are responsible for it. Iraq is a scene of the unmistakable sight of what was done by the totalitarianism when confiscated the politics for decades, and prevent the lowest expressions of difference that congested in the chests of the opponents who came from the nests of the secret work and stores of conspiracies and intrigues , motivated by revenge to their sectarian group, and do not find an example for them, except in totalitarian ruler who were opposed to him in the exile.
Those who are no longer to be waved by the time more than two or three days, where they revenge so from the dreamer and loot what they can to vaccinate themselves about the fate similar to his fate . And as the time is shortened , the home land is declined as well to become a clan topped with a small totem , inhabited by an example of a large totem , while Iran hires totems and their tribes with the inconsiderable prices. The saying of the Indian leader Gandhi can be applied on Iraq today : “Many on the power and few around the world.”
As the political process in Iraq since 2003 and to this day led to a struggle for influence and interests between the blocs and political parties in Iraq, noting that this conflict is no longer taken place between Sunnis on one side and the Shiites on the other side, but the conflict was developed in Iraq to become within the Shiite National Alliance, but the United States and the Iranian regime will not allow that this conflict up to the level of a civil war within the Shiite House, and would intervene at a certain moment to end it, noting that the the war for the first is the end for its project in Iraq and for the second to end of the influence of it.
It seems that Iraq is on the verge of an extremely hot summer of political, military and economic grades began to rise, On the political level , the Iraqi parliament passes tough days of the attempt of the sit-in deputies affiliated to the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to ensure the dismissal of the Speaker and his two deputies, and the storming of supporters of the al-Sadr current of the Iraqi Council of Representatives, and on the military side , Iraq is witnessing the bad situation on the battlefronts against the state organization in Iraq and the Levant “Daash” but economically, Iraq suffers from a severe economic crisis. And Iraq could exceed the severity of this summer if adopted approach to solve the crises that is not based on sectarian or racial dimension, but relying on the national dimension, otherwise this crisis will turn into a flood that no one would be in safe of I . Is the flood waiting for Iraq ?
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies