Saturday, August 06, 2022

Moqtada harbors a desire to supplant Sistani and then some

Saturday was the day breasty Moqtad al-Sadr's goons were supposed to have left the Parliament -- per his orders.   The press, it forgets to tell you that, because reporting is really the last thing on the mind of those who call themselves protesters.  Wednesday, big boobed Moqtada told his followers to begin leaving the Parliament and to all be out by Saturday.


Didn't happen.  


Because he really can't control them -- especially not the ones stupid enough to risk danger on his behalf.  These are ones that will take a bullet to the head while bellowing "MOOOO!"  


Shayan Talabany (FOREIGN POLICY) offers:


In recent months, Iraqi populist Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has gone from the forefront of efforts to formulate a government in Iraq to leading the country toward what he calls a “revolution.” Sadr’s supporters are now protesting in and occupying Iraq’s parliamentary building and the International (Green) Zone of Baghdad, catapulting Iraq’s government formation process into chaos.

After the success of his Sairoon (“Moving Forward”) alliance bloc in October 2021’s parliamentary elections, Sadr appeared to shake up Iraqi politics by forming a government that excluded his Iranian-backed opponents from power. As the leader of the bloc with the largest number of seats, Sadr rejected the formula for consensus-based power-sharing governments that has been the norm since former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003.

Instead, Sadr formed a tripartite “Save the Homeland” alliance with the largest Kurdish party, Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), as well as parliamentary speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi’s Sovereignty Alliance, a Sunni political bloc—thereby cementing a majority in Iraq’s parliament. The alliance was then tasked with forming Iraq’s government.


Didn't happen, Moqtada couldn't pull it off.  So what now?  Talabany argues that Moqtada's attempting to become the equivalent of the Ayatollah Khomeeini:


Like Sadr, Khomeini’s politics have long been analyzed and interpreted. The multiplicity of Iranian identities as well as ideas that Khomeini evoked included a populist assortment of Shiite Islamism, Marxism, and popular anti-colonial, anti-Western, and anti-Israel rhetoric at the time—all of which were instrumental to his pre-1979 appeal and later ability to hijack Iran’s 1979 revolution.

Sadr’s rhetoric has similarly evolved over the years. He encapsulated anti-U.S. sentiment following the 2003 invasion and has maintained staunch anti-imperialism and anti-Israel rhetoric throughout the past two decades, but he also adapted his ideology and focus to change with the times, morphing from explicit Shiite sectarianism in the years following the U.S. invasion to Iraqi nationalism in more recent years. His anti-Iran rhetoric has simultaneously grown alongside increasing anti-Iran sentiment within the country, and when Iraqis took to the streets to denounce Turkish missile strikes on a tourist resort on July 20, Sadr called on his supporters to take to the streets and fight against Turkey.

Sadrists and their affiliates have long held key positions in Iraq’s post-2003 governments, but by refusing to ever hold a direct role in government, Sadr has been able to maintain that he is not accountable for the government’s discrepancies and faults. Instead, he has tried to cultivate a “man of the people” image. Sadr uses his unpredictability to maintain his outsider position because appearing to remain outside of Iraq’s political system is part of his larger goal.


That would make sense.  Moqtada's always loathed Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and his hold over Iraq.  

Meanwhile, neocon Michael Rubin weeps at 1945:


The gap between Washington’s perspective of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi and reality grows daily. Many in the State Department remember Kadhimi as the human rights scholar who chronicled late dictator Saddam Hussein’s abuses or as the journalist who covered Iraqi politics for Al-Monitor, often from a liberal perspective.  Those in the Central Intelligence Agency still see Kadhimi as the competent bureaucrat who took the helm of the Iraqi Intelligence Service at the height of the fight against the Islamic State and worked closely with the United States (and Iran) to end its self-declared emirate.

The American foreign policy establishment breathed a collective sigh of relief when Kadhimi emerged as interim prime minister from the scrum that followed the eruption of nationwide protests and the resignation of Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi.

Kadhimi had a limited mandate: Oversee electoral reform and act as caretaker until new elections. Iraqis hoped he might also seize the moment. Almost half of Iraq’s population was born after 2003. They were no longer willing to give Iraq’s self-dealing political power brokers the benefit of the doubt. They wanted fundamental reform and someone willing to call out corruption. Kadhimi’s weakness—that he had not arisen from a political party and so had no party machine to back him—could also have been his strength. He could argue that Iraq’s political class must take his bitter medicine or face a revolution that would bring them all down.

In the end, Kadhimi has disappointed. His skin is thin. Iraqis from across the political spectrum note corruption is worse now than under Abdul-Mahdi, though they disagree about Kadhimi’s complicity. Kadhimi’s administration has also been Iraq’s worst for press freedom. Tehran has grown increasingly comfortable with Kadhimi as the Iranian regime realizes his ambition will lead him to give them anything they need without the scrutiny that Maliki or Abdul-Mahdi would bring. Economically, he brags of achievements but does not produce the data to support them. High oil prices will not last forever.


Poor little Michael Rubin, crying in the rain.


Someday when my crying's done
I'm gonna wear a smile and walk in the sun
I may be a fool but till then darling
You'll never see me complain
I'll do my crying in the rain
I'll do my crying in the rain
I'll do my crying in the rain
-- "Crying In The Rain," written by Howard Greenfield and Carole King, first performed by The Everly Brothers, first appears on a Carole album with 1983's SPEEDING TIME.



Yes, Mustafa was the choice of the CIA.  Has been every time.  And yet he was incompetent.  And yet he was corruptible.  Could that be part of the reason he was the CIA choice?  Wake up to reality, Rudin, they chose Nouri al-Maliki because he was so paranoid.  They rated that as an asset -- something that would allow Nouri to be controlled -- "like a puppet."  Stop thinking, you infantile, wet-brained fool, that a thumbs up from certain elements of the US government means that the person is a 'good guy.'


What an idiot, what a fool.  


But he was more honest -- above -- about Mustafa than members of the press have been -- Rubin is not a reporter, he's more of a scholar.  Maybe that required him to offer more honesty than any of the western rags have been inclined to serve up?


Let's note Cindy Sheehan:


I have had this blog for 13 years now and there are almost 2k posts and 400 podcasts.   

This service has become very unwieldly to use with the functionality becoming archaic and as a google product, it has begun to "unpublish" some posts that it deems inappropriate.
 
However, I will leave it up for eternity because it does have valuable archives and historical relevance, but I won't be updating it.



Marcia had an unpublish on three posts.  Didn't tell her which three.  Cindy says she's moving to SUBSTACK and hopefully that will be a good fit.


But . . . 


a cautionary note, she won't be leaving it up for eternity.



When you stop posting new posts with Blogger/Blogspot, over time, your posts go away.  Then someone else comes along and uses the site.  They may sell porn -- as usually happens -- but the site will continue.  There are too many links online to CINDY SHEEHAN'S SOAPBOX  for a vulture to leave it alone.  Someone will show up in six months or so posting at her site.  They may, as many do when they take over an existing site, not identify themselves as someone other than Cindy.  So you may see dildoes or who knows what hawked at CINDY SHEEHAN'S SOAPBOX.  But that is what happens.  


You leave the site it does not stay up for all of eternity.  The posts disappear, the site then becomes available and someone else will be squatting on the site Cindy created.  


There are protests in the KRG and we'll note them next time -- I'm honestly more interested in seeing how they are handled, the government response, in terms of compare and contrast with the pats on the head that Moqtada's goon squad has received.


The following sites updated:



 

Posted by at