 9 months after the general elections in Iraq, not only is there no government, but the political crisis continues unabated. The most recent development was the resignation of 73 MPs from the political bloc led by Shia cleric Muktada al-Sadr. The cleric claimed that this was to make space for the establishment of a new government. For the longest time after the polls, it was believed that al-Sadr would play a key role in the formation of a new government. So this recent step has caused further confusion and uncertainty. Why did the Sardarist bloc quit parliament? Is this a gamble by Muktada al-Sadr? Rania Khalik of Breakthrough News explains. So just a quick recap to understand the backdrop of what recently took place. The Iraqi elections, you'll remember, took place in October of last year, but the country has been in this deadlock ever since, and this was the result of the corrupt sectarian system that the Americans had installed in Iraq, which isn't so different from the one that exists in Lebanon. And so in Iraq, the prime minister, Shia, the president is occurred, and the speaker of parliament is Sunni. So first Sunnis, in order to have a government function to create a government, first Sunnis have to agree among each other and propose a candidate for the speaker. And then once he is voted to power, the Kurds have to agree among themselves and propose a candidate for the president. And then once he is voted for, the Shias have to agree among themselves and a prime minister is voted for. So the October 2021 elections were very problematic. They were full of corruption, there was vote buying, candidate buying, tampering with the so-called independent election commission, all of these lovely things that came with the democracy that America brought to the Iraqis. And Muktada Sutter is this fiery Shia cleric from a family of clerics, and he won the most votes for his movement. And so it's suspected, of course, that there was some foul play involved in that. And just for those who don't know, Muktada Sutter, he's famous for his Mahdi army militia which fought the Americans during the occupation, but was also deeply implicated in the sectarian civil war that erupted in Iraq. And he was also less involved in fighting ISIS than other Shia militias. But he has this cult-like following of actually a few million Shias who blindly follow him. So unlike other Shia movements and parties in Iraq, which don't function quite the same. And because he's a little less close to Iran, he's sometimes been perceived as being the anti-Iran candidate, particularly by these naive American analysts who want America to control Iraq. And this is, of course, very simplistic. Muktada Sutter has had a very good relationship with Iran, and actually Lebanese Hezbollah in the past, and he's been hosted by both. But of course, this hasn't stopped Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE from helping him out financially to weaken the pro-resistance factions who are actually closer to Iran. So anyways, traditionally Iraqi governments were formed based on consensus, and Muktada wanted to break that tradition and dominate the government, something which frightened many Iraqis because of fears that his mafia would capture the state and that it's patronage network and memories of their propensity for intimidation and intransigence would as well. So other parties were pushing for a compromise and a government with Muktada, but he refused, right? So despite his bullying, Muktada had been unable to form a government as he wanted it. After being accused of dividing Shias and working with America and working with the Gulf states, Muktada tried to bolster his nationalist credentials by proposing a law that criminalized normalization with Israel and actually added a death penalty to it. This received, of course, a lot of attention from the Americans, the American State Department even sent out a press release condemning it. But then to avoid the need for a government, Muktada pushed through this massive spending bill that would actually allow parties to steal billions without a government even being formed. But the Supreme Court made it clear that the law is unconstitutional until a new government is formed. So basically, after all of these sort of failed attempts to get his way, he threw it like this temper tantrum and ordered his 73 members of parliament to resign. And in the last couple of days, everyone's been trying to figure out what this means. Now if he was serious about wanting an opposition and government, then surely he would have his MPs just become the opposition and allow the other Shia political parties to form a government rather than have his MPs resign, which leads me to think that he's less serious about his MPs resigning and is actually likely stalling for more time to negotiate a consensus government. And just to be clear, Muktada al-Sadr is known for his backtracking. So it'll become more clear what Sadr has in mind with his latest move. But the timing of it comes during parliament and recess. So it seems to be that he's just trying to shift the blame from basically from himself about the lack of a government formation and then putting it on the other Shia political parties, the resistance Shia political parties. And so when he pulled out of politics for a short while prior to the escalation in October, he was also deflecting the pressure he was facing for the hospital fires and poor electricity services at the two ministries that the Sadrist movement was basically part of in government at that time. So it seems like this is a similar move at this time, but only time will tell. This is of course just speculation and whatever it is, this political theater, if you will, is also deflecting blame of a consensus government since he can claim that then he went as far as having his MPs resign. So he can invoke that later on. So all that said, there's basically a few scenarios that we're working with. So one is these resignations are done deal and the list of the 73 MPs will need to be sworn in government formation will be will like move forward. And then we'll face protests that combine the anger of like the summer of 2018 with the sort of broadness of October 2019 uprising. And that will definitely lead to some bloodshed. And the other outcome could be that these resignations just become another factor in this like political chess game in Iraq, right? The judiciary gets involved. Parties will basically prostrate themselves before Maktadah to ensure that he stays in the game, right? And a consensus government will be formed and then Iraq will have another very weak prime minister like the last two who, you know, can't even go to the bathroom without the consent of the political elite because they're so weak. But ultimately, all that said and all that sort of like internal all those internal details aside, I think it's really important to remember the sort of broader lesson from these things and that is that America, the United States of America bestowed upon Iraq a democracy. And I put big quotes around that. That's basically in permanent crisis, like permanent crisis. It's subject to it's subject to the manipulation by outside players like these wealthy Gulf nations, which are constantly intervening. And it's just completely and totally corrupt. And it leads to this very weak government, these very weak governments, one after another, that can't make decisions about the urgent problems facing the country that are like existential crises, especially when you think about what's taking place now in Iraq. I mean, since April alone, there have been 10 recorded sandstorms in Iraq, most of which have been so terrible, it's like shut down airspace. And people sends thousands to the hospital with respiratory issues. A couple of people have died here and there, particularly the elderly. This is being linked to climate change and climate crisis and just environmental degradation in Iraq. That's so awful. And that, again, one week government after another isn't able to deal with the crisis. And that's just one of so many crises in Iraq. In the aftermath of Sutherland's move, a lot of focus is on the coordination framework, a group of Shia parties, as well as other political forces. What are the political positions taken by these forces? And is there a part to a stable government? So the other Shia parties, and there are many, they, unfortunately, there are so many, especially during the last elections, that it actually split the resistance Shia vote. And as a result, you don't really have a unified resistance Shia block when it comes to issues of, you know, the what to do about the Americans, what to do about Iraq, in terms of its behavior, geopolitically, they have a much more unified stance, but as far as, you know, internal dynamics of the country's political system goes, they are kind of like atomized and weak. And that's what that's one of the reasons that Maktadah was able to win because he has such a huge sort of following of people that are just blindly follow him. It's just this movement that really can't be understood in any other way. But that because he doesn't actually have an ideology or stand for anything, except, you know, his himself and his own power and the power of his patronage network. But as far as the other parties are concerned, you know, unfortunately, again, because they're just not united politically inside the country, it's very difficult for them to have the sort of like control or majority block that they otherwise might be able to if they were to come together in some sort of unified way. And again, this really just goes back to the internal dynamics of the Iraqi political system, which is so corrupt and many people, even if they go into the system with good intentions, it's like the system is designed to turn you into a corrupt individual who just wants to collect money because it's so easy to, it's so easy to steal from state coffers. It's almost like that's just what you do when you go into Iraqi politics. And again, this also harms Iraq's ability to protect its own sovereignty at times, because at the end of the day, these sort of internal dynamics of corruption and of, you know, patronage networks and sort of like little mini mafias everywhere. And again, similar problem in Lebanon. And you have a similar dynamic in Lebanon in terms of like these sort of pro-resistance coalitions being able to come together to deal with the internal problems of the country. This actually becomes an existential crisis. And it becomes an existential crisis in the form of like economies being ruined and causing and basically like leaving openings for external actors to come in and basically take advantage of those fissures in society as a result of these broken systems, as well as in the case of Iraq, like I mentioned, this climate issue, this issue of sandstorms, it's making the country unlivable. And so, yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, sadly, the sort of like Sutterists, the Sutterist movement is the most like cohesive and unified as far as like a Shia party is concerned when it comes to holding power in the country as a result of all that.