On Saturday, protesters stormed Iraq’s parliament in reaction to lawmakers’ failure to convene and vote on a second batch of new ministers. The vote was intended to complete a partial cabinet reshuffle that Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had initiated the previous week as part of broader reform plan to replace sectarian party quotas with independent technocrats in top government positions.
It was a sharp escalation of a political crisis that has rocked Iraq for almost nine months now. Although the immediate threat to the government abated with the protesters leaving the compound, the situation is still unpredictable, and Baghdad seems unable to walk itself away from the brink. The United States will thus be critical in brokering a settlement between the prime minister and the parliamentary blocs who oppose him. And, for the first time, it will have to open a direct conversation with Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia leader who once fought U.S. troops during the Iraq War and is now the de facto leader of the protests. Continue reading...
