المركز القومي لدراسات الشرق الأوسط | NCMES

In a surprising move last Tuesday (2/8/2022), Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Sadrist movement, issued his orders, through his spokesman, Saleh Muhammad al-Iraqi, to withdraw his supporters protesting inside the Iraqi parliament building. Al-Iraqi tweeted that “after the liberation of the parliament and its transformation into a parliament for the people, thanks to God Almighty and the efforts of the heroic revolutionaries, the parliament building must be evacuated and the sit-in in and around the parliament within a maximum period of 72 hours from the date of announcement” There were other places where the sit-in should be continued, and the instructions will come to you successively.” The important thing is that he ended his statement by affirming that “the viability of the sit-in is very important to achieve the demands,” noting that “the sit-in must be organized in the form of meals, with the momentum of the numbers remaining at specific times.”

Among these innovative forms of sit-ins, Al-Iraqi spoke about organizing a “unified Friday prayer” next Friday (5/8/2022) in the Celebration Square in Baghdad. He also talked about “forming a committee by the protesters to manage and organize the protests.”

We can say that Muqtada al-Sadr wanted to convey two messages to the other party in the conflict, i.e. the “coordination framework” that includes all the other Shiite forces and parties, with the exception of the Sadrist movement, of course, as well as to mediators who are trying to contain the explosive crisis and return again to the adoption of “dialogue” as a means of managing the conflict in order to avoid Other paths threaten the security and stability of Iraq.

The first message is that Muqtada al-Sadr and his movement is willing to listen to mediators and calls for dialogue, while the second message says that he has no willingness to end the sit-ins, but rather that he is heading towards escalating the situation by detonating and leading a mass protest movement in the provinces of Iraq to confirm that with Appeal to the people, not to the ruling class, who seeks to overthrow it for its corruption.

To read the full article in Arabic please visit: ثلاثة مشاهد فى انتظار العراق | المركز القومي لدراسات الشرق الأوسط | NCMES