BAGHDAD: Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr may have declared his “definitive retirement” from politics this week, but the violence that erupted after his announcement points to murkier intentions, analysts believe.
“Al-Sadr is looking to become the most powerful Shiite political player in Iraq,” Renad Mansour of British think tank Chatham House said.
“That is his agenda, and part of achieving that requires destabilizing not just the political system as such, but particularly the Shiite house and building it back up with him at the center of it.”
Al-Sadr, whose father was one of Iraq’s most respected Shiite clerics, has gradually grown into a key political player in this landscape, bolstered by a Shiite support base that he often mobilizes to press his demands.
Since elections last October, disagreements between Al-Sadr and a rival Iran-backed Shiite force known as the Coordination Framework have left Iraq without a new government, prime minister or president.
Tensions escalated sharply on Monday when Al-Sadr loyalists stormed the government palace inside the Green Zone after he announced he was quitting politics.
But Sadr’s supporters then left the Green Zone on Tuesday afternoon when he appealed for them to withdraw within the hour — a demonstration of the cult-like following that earned him his kingmaker status.
At least 30 Al-Sadr supporters had been shot dead and nearly 600 wounded in nearly 24 hours of fighting between rival Shiite factions.
“It’s not the first time he has sent protesters in and then asked them to withdraw,” Mansour said. “His goal, his ultimate aim, is to become the main Shia political force in Iraq.”
Al-Sadr’s bloc won 73 seats in the October elections, making it the largest faction in the 329-seat parliament.
The cleric has since tried a series of unsuccessful maneuvers to “secure his dominance within the political system and exclude his rivals,” said assistant professor Fanar Haddad of the University of Copenhagen.