Fighting erupted in the center of Baghdad on Monday as followers of Muqtada al Sadr sought to seize government buildings in the Iraqi capital. They did so shortly after the firebrand Iraqi cleric announced his retirement from politics.
It has now been more than 10 months since polls delivered a political stalemate. In recent weeks, both Sadr and his opponents in the Coordination Framework, a loose coalition of Shiite political leaders, have engaged in a growing game of brinkmanship. In the days prior to the violence, I interviewed Iraqis in Baghdad about the political impasse. More than any time in over 15 years, Iraqis saw no way out from the slow-motion train wreck. Most considered the 2005 constitution no longer tenable. Iraqis have agency and blame their leaders rather than outside powers or foreign conspiracies. Still, they complained Washington analyzed Iraq in a flawed way that compounds problems and hampers solutions.
In the American narrative, the struggle in Iraqi politics is between those who would allow Iran to dominate the country versus those willing to fight Iranian influence. Through this lens, Sadr becomes an ally. Whereas in the immediate aftermath of the 2003 United States-led invasion, Sadr often served Iranian interests and, indeed, conspired with Tehran to kill hundreds of Americans and even greater numbers of more progressive Iraqis, in recent years, Sadr has reinvented himself as an anti-corruption activist, and as an Iraqi nationalist opposed to Iranian influence. Greasing his conversion was a growing relationship with both Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and senior Emirati officials. Even though Sadr refused to talk to Americans directly, many in Washington saw his evolution as sincere and began to consider as an ally the firebrand cleric who the Bush administration had once considered killing.
Sadr was not the only Iraqi power-broker Washington assessed through the lens of U.S.-Iran competition. Washington sees caretaker Prime Minister Mustafa al Kadhimi as a pro-American asset and believes Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani to oppose Iranian influence.
The narrative that the Sadrists, Kadhimi, and Barzani are anti-Iran while their opponents in the Coordination Framework are pro-Iran is too simplistic.
Certainly, Coordination Framework figures such as former Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, Asaib Ahl al Haq leader Qais Khazali, and Badr Corps chief Hadi Ameri are Iranian assets. But Ammar al Hakim, also a member of the alliance, recently had a three-hour meeting with Mohammed bin Salman as the Saudi crown prince signaled doubts about Sadr’s ambitions. Indeed, on the Sadr question, the Saudis and Iraqis understand that to which Americans remain blind: Sadr’s opposition to Iran is not ideological but rather a dispute over power.
While Kadhimi assures American diplomats, intelligence officials, and think tank analysts that he confronts Iranian-backed militias that have tried on multiple occasions to assassinate him, he maintains a good working relationship with Iran’s Quds Force and gave a villa to Mohammad Kawtharani, a U.S.-designated terrorist who is Hezbollah’s representative to Iraq. Under Kadhimi’s tenure, the wealth and strength of Iranian-backed militias have increased less because of Iranian subsidies and more because Kadhimi’s government grants them subsidies and contracts. Barzani similarly plays a double game. Indeed, the difference between the two groups is more one of image than substance. The two competitors are not anti-Iran and pro-Iran; rather, each encompasses opinions shaped by realism, if not ideology. Iran has never put all its eggs in one basket; Iraq is no exception.
To gauge Iraq only through the lens of Iran guarantees failure. Iraqis say corruption in Kadhimi’s office is now of an extraordinary degree. To support a person over the system not only might repel Iraqis when that person does wrong but also will never achieve lasting change. Instead, change requires strengthening the system rather than relying on a single man.
Washington must confront (and not through sanctions relief indirectly fund) malign Iranian activity. To embrace both simple narratives and some of Iraq’s most corrupt politicians at the expense of fundamental reform will backfire.
Michael Rubin (@mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
