The Revenge of the Antichrist

Why Iran Could Be the Real Loser in Iraq’s Intra-Shiite Struggle

Iraqi populist leader Muqtada al-Sadr delivering a speech in Najaf, Iraq, August 2022
Iraqi populist leader Muqtada al-Sadr delivering a speech in Najaf, Iraq, August 2022Alaa Al-Marjani / Reuters

The Revenge of Muqtada al-Sadr

September 13, 2022

On August 29, the Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr announced that he would withdraw from politics after months of failed attempts to form a new government. Thousands of supporters of the nationalist leader, who has emerged as a staunch opponent of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, surged into the streets in anger, clashing with Iraqi security forces, breaching concrete barriers around Baghdad’s Green Zone, and storming the seat of government. After dozens of people were killed, Sadr went on television and instructed his supporters to go home, easing—for the moment, at least—a political crisis that has paralyzed Iraq’s

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s