Under Reform Mantle, Shiite Cleric Fractures Iraqi Politics
After more than a decade of dipping in and out of Iraqi politics, Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shiite cleric who first made his name fighting U.S. forces in post-2003 Iraq, is leveraging his enduring popular appeal to again roil Iraq's political order. On April 30, when his supporters invaded the highly fortified Green Zone in the Iraqi […]Susannah George writes for AP:
After more than a decade of dipping in and out of Iraqi politics, Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shiite cleric who first made his name fighting U.S. forces in post-2003 Iraq, is leveraging his enduring popular appeal to again roil Iraq's political order.
On April 30, when his supporters invaded the highly fortified Green Zone in the Iraqi capital and overran the parliament building to demand political reforms, it marked a dramatic escalation of a long-simmering standoff between Iraq's powerful political blocs.
While al-Sadr's most recent show of force has been playing out in central Baghdad, the core of support that fuels his power lies on the city's northeastern edge. In Sadr City — the Shiite dominated neighborhood renamed after the cleric's family in 2003 — al-Sadr's support doesn't stem from how he's played his political hand but from his lineage.
