A funeral for a man who was killing during an anti-government protest in Baghdad in November. More than 500 protesters have been killed and 19,000 wounded since the start of the demonstrations.Credit…Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters

BAGHDAD — For 12 weeks, Iraqi protesters have massed in the streets of Baghdad and cities in southern Iraq to demand the ouster of the government, an end to corruption and a halt to the overweening influence of Iran.

And for 12 weeks, the government has foundered in its response, alternating vague promises of reform with brutal treatment of protesters by its security forces. More than 500 protesters have been killed and 19,000 wounded, according to the United Nations special envoy to Iraq, but the violent response has only deepened protesters’ resolve.

The prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, has resigned but has remained in a caretaker role, and Parliament has yet to come up with someone to replace him.

The political crisis that now confronts Iraq is as serious as any since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein 16 years ago, and its leaders appear ill-equipped to reckon with it. No consensus has emerged for a plan to reform the government to meet the protesters’ demands.

Parliament has not seriously considered even the proposed changes to the election law put forward by President Barham Salih, which would reduce the influence of parties and the corruption they foster.

This week, a constitutional deadline for Parliament to nominate a new prime minister came and went. Even finding an acceptable candidate for prime minister is a tall order.

“It’s very difficult to find someone who is both broadly acceptable to the street, to the protesters, but who also has the party support, the political support to navigate the transition,” said Maria Fantappie, a senior adviser on Iraq and Syria for the International Crisis Group.

Iraqi security forces during a clash in November with anti-government groups in Baghdad.Credit…Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

Even if they did, that would hardly begin to address the protesters’ sweeping demands.

“Our goal is not to have Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi resign,” said Mehdi Chassin, a college student from Amara, in southern Iraq, who came to Baghdad to join the protests. “That makes no difference because another guy will come who will be just the same. We want them all to go.”

But Parliament is unlikely to adopt reforms that would end the careers of everyone in it, and the protesters are unlikely to accept anything less.

“What the parties want is rejected by the Iraqi people and what the Iraqi people want is rejected by the parties,” said Karim al-Nuri, a senior official in the Badr Organization, one of the parties that is close to Iran, but has a diverse membership.

“So there are two alternatives: either to change the Iraqi people or to change some of the political class and make some change in the political process.”

Parliament also seems unprepared to find a way to reduce Iranian influence.

Iranian political and military operatives — including senior figures like Qassim Soleimani, the head of the powerful Quds Force that reports to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — have been in and out of Baghdad trying to ensure that whoever is nominated for prime minister meets Iran’s needs.

So, rather than debate the protesters’ demands directly, members of Parliament talk about how much they are doing — passing legislation to limit salaries of the ministers for instance.

Qais Al-Khazali, the leader of one of the Shiite parliamentary blocs close to Iran, said, “We have enacted legislation, that is our responsibility, now the government’s responsibility is to enforce it.”

When the protests started on Oct. 1, many who came to demonstrate in Baghdad and across southern Iraq were demanding jobs and services such as electricity and clean water.

But after the government opened fire on them, killing more than 100 in the first five days, the number of protesters multiplied and they began to agitate for more far-reaching changes.

Overhauling the entire system of government seems far from politically possible. But the protesters’ focus reflects their frustration with the government’s failure to foster economic opportunity or deal with entrenched corruption. These grievances unite all of those who have come to the street: the young people, the workers, the poor, the educated and the barely literate, the tribal leaders as well as urban street sweepers.

The protesters secured a bridge in Baghdad as part of a sit-in on Dec. 10.Credit…Ali Abdul Hassan/Associated Press

Some members of Parliament acknowledge that they are engaged in a different struggle: the allocation of spoils in the next government. The discussions over choosing a new prime minister, they said, have centered less on the ideals and desires of the Iraqi people than on political power and money.

“There’s a lot of division about who comes next as prime minister, and that’s a problem because the political parties are redividing up the ministries, looking to figure out who gets which ministry share,” said Haithem al-Jubori the head of Parliament’s finance committee.

Iran is particularly concerned that it maintain influence in Iraq’s ministries, especially those dealing with security and economic matters. With America’s tight sanctions against Iran, Tehran increasingly needs Iraq in order to “breathe” economically — both for its markets and for military purposes, to protect its interests in Syria and Lebanon.

The parties that are most powerful and closest to Iran are those that grew out of the armed Shiite groups. It is militia units from ministries controlled by those parties, or agencies of the prime minister, that are blamed by human rights activists for the most violent attacks on the protesters.

In responding to the protests with violence, these forces are taking a page from the Iranian playbook: When Tehran was faced with protests over gas prices in November, it crushed them brutally, killing as many as 450 people in four days and imprisoning 7,000.

Protesters in Najaf set a fire during a protest in front of the Iranian consulate in November.Credit…Reuters

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Demonstrators take part in ongoing anti-government protests in Tahrir Square, Baghdad, on Tuesday.Ahmed Jadallah / Reuters

Nearly 17 years ago, the United States invaded Iraq and toppled the government of Saddam Hussein. That created a power vacuum partly filled — and exploited — by Iran. The U.S. has been trying, with limited success, to dampen its regional arch enemy’s influence over Iraq ever since. In recent weeks, assistance has come from an unlikely source: the Iraqi people.

In early October, the Arab Spring finally arrived in Iraq. Large-scale demonstrations broke out against the government, pitting thousands of young protesters against a government they believe has failed them economically and politically and want it to step aside. Demands for jobs, respect for human rights, an end to corruption and better public services are at the heart of protesters’ grievances. But so is anger at Iran for trying to use Iraq’s political class for its own ends.

Tehran has tried to build influence in Iraq for well over a decade in a not-so-subtle effort to turn Iraq into a subservient vassal state, provoking deep resentment among many ordinary Iraqis. In fact, the protests were touched off by outrage at the reassignment of a popular Iraqi counter-terrorism official who had been trying to rein in pro-Iran armed militias. And the volume of anti-Iran rhetoric is only growing; a few days ago, Iran’s consulate in the southern city of Karbala was attacked.

In a region with few signs of hope, this popular uprising against political and economic corruption, with anger toward Iran at its center, is both a serious challenge and a beacon of possibility for the United States. It is a ground-up movement that threatens not only the Iranian grip on an important regional ally but Iran as well. The United States has a strong interest in helping Iraq navigate these tough challenges — both to help Iraq itself, which could fall victim once again to a resurgent Islamic State militant group if not shored up, and to counter Iran’s ambitions.

Iran is under growing duress from the Trump administration’s campaign of “maximum pressure,” which has ratcheted up sanctions and moved additional forces to the Persian Gulf to confront Iran’s nuclear ambitions and counter its destabilizing regional policies. In this context, Iran’s leaders see Iraq’s political turmoil in conspiratorial terms, blaming it on “foreign hands” (read: the U.S. and Israel). They know the damage that “losing” Iraq would do to their strategy for attaining regional supremacy.

And they are all too aware of the possibility that Iraq’s mass demonstrations could inspire a similar popular uprising in their own country, having been buffeted by the massive demonstrations of 2009’s “Green Movement” as well as countrywide protests early last year against the government’s economic policies and repressive theocratic rule.

That’s why Iranian security officials have advised Iraqi counterparts to get tougher on the protesters. Militia forces aligned with Iran have been suspected of involvement in the killings of demonstrators, and there have been allegations that Iranians took part. New reports suggest that Iran may be preparing to intervene on a larger scale.

The United States has a strong interest in helping Iraq chart a different course in dealing with the protesters. Beyond neutralizing Iran, Iraqi stability is vital to many U.S. interests, including minimizing the threat posed by ISIS and maintaining security in the Persian Gulf. Perhaps most important, a stable Iraq can show that an electoral democracy can take root in a volatile region and that there is a middle path between autocracy and chaos.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi has issued a 13-point reform plan in response to the criticism of the protesters, but he acknowledges there is no quick and easy fix and has offered to resign, a prospect the Iranians abhor as they see him as a political ally. President Barham Salih pledges to hold new elections eventually, but the process of forming another government would take months. Iraq, a country awash in weapons, needs to see conciliatory rhetoric and promises of change backed up by quick and decisive action rather than talk of change months down the road, or the situation could deteriorate dramatically.

It’s bad enough right now. Protests have turned steadily more deadly as government forces have turned their weapons on the demonstrators. At least 260 people have been killed and 10,000 wounded since the protests began in October, according to Iraq’s High Commission for Human Rights., and daily clashes between security forces and demonstrators are escalating in number and ferocity. A massive crackdown failed to tamp down the unrest.

As if the mounting challenge to Iraq’s political order were not worrying enough, chaos in neighboring Syria following the sudden withdrawal of most U.S. troops has opened the door for the re-emergence of ISIS. Since 2016, the group has transformed itself into a covert network with as many as 20,000 fighters in northern Syria and Iraq, where the United Nations believes it is preparing for an “eventual resurgence” to re-establish its “caliphate,” the quasi-state that once controlled an area the size of the U.K. Iraqi officials are clearly worried that the return of ISIS could exponentially magnify their internal crisis.

What’s taking place in Iraq is similar to the Arab Spring protest movements that toppled autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya beginning in 2011. They came close to overthrowing Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad, too, before Russia and Iran intervened to prop him up. And they find echoes in the protests that have taken place recently in Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Algeria, and Morocco. Events in Iraq show that it, too, is vulnerable to the same discontent that brought down authoritarian, unresponsive governments elsewhere.

Ultimately, only Iraqis can fix Iraq. But Washington incurred a responsibility when it invaded the country in 2003. The United States must now do what it can to help provide the economic tools Iraq needs to address its problems, particularly by doing more to organize international efforts in support of long-neglected reconstruction projects in the hardest-hit provinces.

The U.S. should provide strong diplomatic backing for Iraqi leaders as they strive to implement the bold political plans and compromises they need and insist on respect for the human rights and civil liberties of the protesters. And Washington should make clear its commitment to Iraq’s security by increasing training, logistical support and equipment transfers to the Iraqi Security Forces.

American leadership on Iraq can begin to undo the damage the Trump administration’s chaotic policy in Syria has done to perceptions of U.S. regional leadership and put Iran on notice that it cannot have a free hand in the Middle East. These are tough challenges indeed, but challenges the U.S. cannot afford to ignore.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/iraq-protests-against-iran-government-corruption-are-rare-sign-hope-ncna1078746

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