Election Upset in Iraq

It's probably more a statement of the poor quality of Western reporting on Iraq -- this morning the only story I could locate about Saturday's parliamentary elections was from from Reuters, "Cleric Sadr, in surprise comeback, seems set to win Iraq election" -- than an actual upset by Muqtada al-Sadr's Alliance of Revolutionaries for Reform coalition:

In the first election since Islamic State was defeated in the country, Shi’ite militia chief Hadi al-Amiri’s bloc, which is backed by Iran, was in second place, while Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, once seen as the front-runner, trailed in third position.

The preliminary results were based on a count of more than 95 percent of the votes cast in 10 of Iraq’s 18 provinces.

Unlike Abadi, a rare ally of both the United States and Iran, Sadr is an opponent of both of the countries which have wielded influence in Iraq since a U.S.-led invasion toppled Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein and ushered the Shi’ite majority to power.

[snip]

Turnout was 44.52 percent with 92 percent of votes counted, the Independent High Electoral Commission said - that was significantly lower than in previous elections. Full results are due to be officially announced later on Monday.

Sadr and Amiri both came in first in four of the 10 provinces where votes were counted, but the cleric’s bloc won significantly more votes in the capital, Baghdad, which has the highest number of seats.

A document provided to Reuters by a candidate in Baghdad that was also circulating among journalists and analysts showed results from all 18 provinces.

Reuters could not independently verify the document’s authenticity but the results in it showed Sadr had won the nationwide popular vote with more than 1.3 million votes and gained 54 of parliament’s 329 seats.

He was followed by Amiri with more than 1.2 million votes, translating into 47 seats, and Abadi with more than 1 million votes and 42 seats, according to calculations made by Reuters based on the document. Ex-Prime Miniser Nuri al-Maliki, a close ally of Iran like Amiri, came in fourth with 25 seats.

Winning the largest number of seats does not automatically guarantee that Sadr will be able to hand-pick a prime minister. The other winning blocs would have to agree on the nomination.

In a 2010 election, Vice President Ayad Allawi’s group won the largest number of seats, albeit with a narrow margin, but he was blocked from becoming prime minister for which he blamed Tehran.

And a similar fate could befall Sadr. Iran has publicly stated it would not allow his bloc to govern and may try to form a governing coalition between its allies, Amiri and Maliki.

“We will not allow liberals and communists to govern in Iraq,” Ali Akbar Velayati, top adviser to the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in February.

His statement, which sparked criticism by Iraqi figures, was referring to the electoral alliance between Sadr, the Iraqi Communist Party and other secular groups who joined protests organized by Sadr in 2016 to press the government to see through a move to stem endemic corruption.

Iraqi Communist Party Secretary General Raed Fahmy told Reuters the vote in favor of the Sadrist list, backed by his group, ‘’is is a clear message that we must have balanced relations with all (foreign countries) based non-interference in Iraq’s internal affairs.’’

‘’Everybody is welcome to provide support to Iraq, but not at the expense of its sovereignty and independence,’’ he added.

During the campaign, frustrated Iraqis of all shades complained about their political elite’s systematic patronage, bad governance and corruption, saying they didn’t receive any benefits of their country’s oil wealth.

‘’The importance of this vote is that it is a clear message that the people wants to change the system of governance which has produced corruption and weakened state institutions,’’ said Fahmy. ‘’It is a message to provide services to the people, health and education, and to reduce social disparities.’’

These parliamentary elections must be seen as a solid defeat of the U.S.-Saudi-Israeli goal of Balkanizing Iraq. Clearly the Islamic State was a GCC-supported project to create a Sunnistan out of Iraq and Syria. It partially succeeded in Syria with U.S. troops and air power controlling one-third of the country and a hefty chunk of turf along the Iraq border.

But the citizens of Iraq are more committed to their sovereignty and national independence than at any time since the U.S. invasion. The defeat of the Salafist mercenaries played a key role in this renewal of national purpose. The same thing can be said of neighboring Syria.

The U.S.-Israeli-Saudi idea to scrap the Sykes-Picot Middle East is proving difficult to implement. It's actually reinvigorating allegiance to these old nationalist constructs.

The problem for the United States and its clients is that it has force but it can't actually hold territory, absent U.S. troops. The Salafis have proven incapable. The Israelis are too busy slaughtering Palestinians in Gaza.

The United States remains the only option for GCC states and Israel. And right now there is not enough of an anti-war movement in the U.S. to block another war from kicking off.