Iran’s Iraq project is in danger now that a Shiite cleric (sic) is surprisingly emerging as the big winner in the country’s first election since the rise and defeat of Islamic State.
After Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) released preliminary results of the May 12 election it appeared the Sa’iroun list of the maverick Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr was emerging as the winner with the Iran-backed Badr (Conquest) Party, which is in fact a paramilitary organization, in second place.
Al-Sadr’s Sa’iroun list (marching towards reform in English) consisted of an odd coalition of his Shiite supporters, secularists and the Iraqi Communist Party.
The IEHC reported on Wednesday Sa’iroun won in 6 of Iraq’s 18 provinces while the final results will be released later on Thursday.
After the news of his unexpected win broke al-Sadr made clear he would not form a government coalition with the Badr Party and with former Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Miliki.
This drew the ire of Iran which announced prior to the Iraqi election it would not allow “liberals (secularists) and communists” to govern Iraq.
The Islamic Republic immediately dispatched Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, to Bagdad in an attempt to form a new cabinet that would have the approval of the Mullahs in Tehran.
Soleimani is a friend of Hadi al-Ameri the leader of the Badr Party who was Tehran’s preferred candidate to form a new Iraqi government.
Al-Ameri is also one of the commanders of the Hash al-Shaabi umbrella organization of predominantly Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq which was integrated in the Iraqi army at the end of 2016 and was more than instrumental in winning the war against ISIS in the country.
Soleimani is trying to reach consensus about the forming of a Shi’ite dominated coalition, according to an Iraqi official who serves as an intermediary between al-Sadr and other factions. READ MORE
