Iraq voters back anti-U.S. cleric
BAGHDAD — Muqtada alSadr, a firebrand militia leader whose forces once battled U.S. troops in Iraq and were implicated in widespread atrocities against civilians, has emerged as the surprise front-runner in the Iraqi national elections, according to Iraqi election officials.
After U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq in 2011, al-Sadr remained vocally anti-American, though he has also been strongly critical of Iran, the other foreign power with widespread influence here.
The victory of al-Sadr’s political coalition could complicate the U.S. strategy in Iraq. The U.S. military has been training, sharing intelligence and planning missions with former militias in the country, gambling that their military partnership can keep the Islamic State from making a comeback here.
Al-Sadr has been highly critical of U.S. airstrikes in the country against the Islamic State, though he has said little recently about his willingness to allow U.S. troops to remain on Iraqi soil.
U.S. officials are now uncertain — though not yet worried — about what the position of Iraq’s future government may be on the issue.
Some of al-Sadr’s political allies, even those who fought against U.S. soldiers in the past, want the United States to stay and help shore up the country. His closest rivals in the election also support the Americans staying. And even al-Sadr’s representatives have said that he would abide by agreements between the United States and Iraq on training Iraqi security forces.
Al-Sadr once led the Iraqi Shiite militia known as the Mahdi Army, which fought with U.S. forces after the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein and the Sunni-led minority in power then. The Mahdi Army was blamed for death squads that committed reprisals on Sunnis during the country’s worst sectarian convulsions in 2006 and 2007.
Early in the U.S.-led invasion, President George W. Bush called al-Sadr an enemy and even briefly considered the idea of having the U.S. military capture or kill him. “We can’t allow one man to change the course of the country,” Bush said in a video teleconference.
Al-Sadr, a scion of a Shiite clerical family, has spent years refashioning his image. He now offers himself as a populist outsider intent on fighting corruption, and he has capitalized on the grievances shared by many Iraqis over the systematic graft in their country.
He no longer rails so defiantly at America as he once did, when his disciples killed U.S. soldiers and committed atrocities against Sunnis in sectarian bloodletting. He has cast himself as an ardent nationalist, and distanced himself from Iran, the Shiite power next door that established a growing influence in Iraq after the U.S. military withdrawal in 2011.
While al-Sadr was once known for prolonged trips to Iran, he raised eyebrows less than a year ago with a rare visit to Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional rival, where he met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and others.
Al-Sadr’s Shiite militia fighters played a prominent role in helping in the fight to evict the Islamic State extremists who seized major Iraqi cities four years ago, and many are now part of Iraq’s regular armed forces.
In a 2017 interview with a Turkish television station, alSadr advocated reaching out to Iraqi Sunnis in Mosul. “There are still moderates among the people but they are scared,” he said. “We have to give them a chance to show up and give their ideas.”
Now, he has upset the nation’s political order. Although al-Sadr was not a candidate and cannot become prime minister, he led an unlikely alliance of candidates that included Iraq’s moribund communists, Sunni businessmen and pious community activists.
Al-Sadr’s coalition, Iraqi officials say, placed first in six provinces, including the densely populated capital, Baghdad. His alliance could have the first opportunity to build a governing coalition, and on Monday night in Baghdad, crowds of youths in the city’s impoverished Sadr City area waved pictures of al-Sadr and set off fireworks.
There is no guarantee that al-Sadr will have the final say on who Iraq’s next leader is. After final results are announced, negotiations between Iraq’s competing parties are expected to continue for the next 15 days, meaning the political landscape could well change.