While Muqtada al-Sadr resolved the controversy surrounding the possibility of his alliance with Nuri al-Maliki, experts on the Iraqi issue warned against the upcoming efforts of the armed factions and obstruction of the expected government.
The forces of the coordination framework, which include Shiite parties and currents close to Iran, are the biggest losers from the developments of the political scene after the recognition of the legitimacy of the first session of Parliament.
The secret of the historical enmity
Al-Sadr’s refusal is due to the deep and strategic dispute between the two men since Al-Maliki became prime minister of the Iraqi government in 2008.
This hostility, which observers describe as “historic”, began in March 2008, when al-Maliki led a fierce military operation called “Salaat al-Fursan” targeting the Mahdi Army led by al-Sadr, during which the Iraqi city of Basra turned into a real war zone.
During that battle, the human losses on both sides were estimated at 1500, while the material losses to Iraq amounted to about 27 million dollars, according to media reports, in which the Mahdi Army besieged the presidential palace and Nouri al-Maliki inside, and the latter used helicopters to bomb those gatherings.
At that time, the operation brought to mind the Iran-Iraq war, according to observers, as the Mahdi Army mobilized in other regions of Iraq, the most violent of which was in its stronghold in the Sadr City neighborhood, east of Baghdad.
Commenting on al-Sadr’s refusal to ally with al-Maliki, Iraqi political analyst Nadim al-Jabri said that “al-Maliki formed a major node in the dialogue between al-Sadr and the Shiite coordinating framework forces since the beginning of the government formation negotiations.”
He explains, in exclusive statements to “Sky News Arabia”, that “the differences between Sadr and Maliki are deep and extend for more than a decade and a half, as the latter organized a campaign of arrests among the followers of the Sadrist movement known as “The Knights of the Knights”, a historical hostility that has now resulted in the removal of al-Maliki.”
Knights of the Knights 2
Disagreements between the two men continued, and were again revealed in the political scene ahead of the parliamentary elections last October.
At that time, al-Sadr attacked al-Maliki and his political opponents before the elections, calling them failure and corruption.
During his attack, al-Sadr described his opponent, Nuri al-Maliki, as “the two presidents”, meaning the two terms of government he served.
In the second “Salaat Al-Fursan” in 2016, Al-Maliki, during his second term, threatened his political opponents to launch another military operation, similar to “Salaat Al-Fursan 1”, after massive demonstrations against him in Basra.
During the protests, thousands of angry Iraqis stormed a cultural center where Maliki was addressing his followers, chanting that he was “the leader of thieves and the cause of disasters.”
The former Iraqi Prime Minister also faced a storm of anger during his tour of southern Iraq, in the governorates of Dhi Qar, Maysan and Basra.
This anger has not subsided so far in the Iraqi street against al-Maliki, as, last Thursday, Iraqis demonstrated in Al-Nusour Square in central Baghdad, demanding the trial of al-Maliki.
There are political and popular parties that blame al-Maliki, who served as the Iraqi prime minister for two terms, for the fall of two-thirds of Iraq at the hands of ISIS in 2014, as well as the massacre of the Speicher military base in Tikrit in 2016, where 1,700 soldiers were shot dead.
Will al-Maliki change the displacement?
And Iran failed to bring the views closer between Al-Sadr and Al-Maliki, after the former insisted on removing the latter from forming the government.
Last week, Tehran pushed, with its representative, Ismail Qaani, the commander of the Al-Quds militias terrorist corps, to Baghdad to contain the crisis between the two parties and to secure a safe exit for Al-Maliki.
But Qaani was surprised by Al-Sadr’s refusal to ally with Maliki, and his adherence to the slogan of forming an Iraqi government, “neither Eastern under the command of Tehran nor Western, loyal to Washington.”
“Iran failed to end the differences between the two largest blocs (the coordination framework and the Sadr bloc), and it also failed to persuade al-Sadr to ally with Nuri al-Maliki,” according to Jordanian writer Muhammad Salama.
Muqtada al-Sadr insists not only on excluding al-Maliki from forming the government, but on referring his files to the judiciary on charges of corruption and his actions during his tenure as prime minister of the Iraqi government, according to what Salama said in an article.
Here, the head of the Political Thinking Center in Iraq, Dr. Ihsan Al-Shammari, expected that “the framework forces will abandon al-Maliki and agree with al-Sadr, provided there are guarantees that he and his bloc will not be pursued politically and judicially, and that files regarding their executive and parliamentary performance are not opened.”
Regarding the possibility of al-Maliki accepting what is described as a “silent exit,” al-Shammari confirmed to “Sky News Arabia”, that “the head of the State of Law coalition will accept this role if political settlements take place that guarantees him a space in the Iraqi parliament or headed by parliamentary committees.”
He also warned that “the Shiite factions, after losing successive political battles and following the Federal Court’s decision to legalize the first session of Parliament, will try to obstruct the government and create crises.”
But Al-Jabri says: “In any case, the forces of the framework are outside the calculations of the upcoming political scene and have no ability to intercept the new convoy that will be led by the three winners, Al-Sadr, Al-Halbousi and Barzani.”
.