Iraq has become a powder keg, at any moment the outbreak is inevitable. It has been about ten months since it was possible to form a government. Yesterday the protests were particularly violent: thousands of supporters of the Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr they broke through the barriers surrounding the Green Zone occupying the seat of the Iraqi Parliament. Their protest is motivated by the possible appointment of the pro-Iranian candidate as prime minister Mohammed al Sudani, indicated by the Shiite Coordination Framework, notoriously close to Tehran.
The police intervened by throwing tear gas and had to fall back when they saw that the situation was getting hot. The Ministry of Health drew up the bulletin: 125 injured including 25 officers.
Supporters of al Sadr clamored: "the people are with you Sayyid Muqtada“, Presiding over the parliamentary building.
Al Sadr's party won more votes in the October 2021 elections, but was unable to form a majority and in June the Shiite leader ordered his party's deputies to resign. At that point, the Shiite Coordination Framework obtained the seats left by the Sadrists and tried to form a government by nominating Al Sudani as premier, hostile to the Sadrist front which it labels as Tehran puppet.
The vote, scheduled for today, jumped again while the clash between al Sadr and Nouri al Maliki, the former leader of the pro-Iranian factions, becomes more and more animated. Despite repeated appeals to remain calm, the situation risks escalating into a real civil war. The appeal for dialogue and unity launched by Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, of the UN mission in Iraq and of the Arab League, was of no avail.
Any pretext could trigger what international observers are warding off at a time of great global instability.