Muqtada Al-Sadr makes a detour towards Iran's man in Iraq

Iraq’s Muqtada Al-Sadr has disappointed many of those who considered the success of his candidate list in the recent national elections to be a defeat for Tehran. After all, Al-Sadr has expressed more than once in recent times his desire to distance himself from Iran and detach Iraq from the position the Iranian government has wanted for it. The source of disappointment has, of course, been the announcement of an alliance between the Sadr list, known as Sa’irun, and Al-Fatah list, which is headed by Tehran’s number one man in Iraq, Hadi Al-Amiri. The latter came second in the order of the Shia forces that won at the polls.

As such, the belief that Tehran suffered a setback in the Iraqi elections is wrong on two counts. Even if we consider that Al-Sadr’s success was a setback for Tehran’s standing, adding up the number of seats won by the election blocs that are close to Iran will lead us to conclude that Tehran enjoys the most influence in the new Iraqi parliament. Furthermore, those who rushed into welcoming Al-Sadr’s success, assuming that he is Tehran’s rival, lack any knowledge of the nature of the relationship that Iraqi Shia have with Iranian sectarianism on one hand and the Arab world’s pan-Arabism on the other.

The Shia of Iraq perceive themselves to be Arabs. On an almost daily basis they live through the variations of their own Shi’ism and Iranian Shi’ism; there are numerous cultural, habitual, linguistic and economic variations. However, at the same time they feel that the sectarian dimension has surpassed the nationalist dimension. If the bitterness of the relationship with Tehran generated non-positive sentiments toward it, the bitterness of the relationship with the Arab world generated bigger and more acute sentiments.

Another matter that is worth paying attention to in this context is the fact that Tehran is present in every single aspect of Iraqi public life. It is there in the corruption; in the militias; in the wars; in the number of Iranian visitors to the holy shrines; in the formation of political lists and alliances; and in the relationship between the Sunnis and the Kurds. In contrast, there is a deafening Arab absence from everything in Iraq. There is no sign of any Arab presence in Baghdad except for the embassies that are inhabited by cautious diplomats who spend most of their times within the walls of their compounds.

This reality renders any attempt to distance Iraq from Tehran more like a venture into the unknown. After all, who would receive those who decide to stay away from Tehran? If anyone was to find someone to receive him, how would such a relationship be conducted? How will the person who decides to stay away from Tehran seek assistance from Arabs who are basically absent from his country?

There has been no research to enable anyone to comprehend the nature of the relationship between Muqtada Al-Sadr and Tehran. The man “who stood away” from Iran in recent times had previously studied in Qom where he was tutored by Iranian scholars. He is a child of the “speaking seminary” that was established by his own father. Although it is closer to the Iraqi school of jurisprudence than to the Iranian school of Wilyat Al-Faqih, he has been the most unruly Iraqi Shia politician, often making statements that are inconsistent with the Iranian position, whether in Iraq or elsewhere in the region.

Now Al-Sadr has announced an alliance with Hadi Al-Amiri, the commander of the Iraqi militias that have fought along all sectarian fronts, which were set up under the personal supervision of the Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, Qasem Suleimani. This is notwithstanding the fact that Al-Sadr has his own militias known as “Saraya Al-Salam”. Such an alliance cannot be understood within the context of the belief that Al-Sadr’s success in the elections meant a defeat for Tehran.

The cards in Tehran’s hand are numerous and many of them are inside Iraq. As the government in Tehran observed the political progress of the “unruly” Al-Sadr in the elections, it did not rush into designating him as a rival. It knows that the sectarian reality is stronger than the choices of the politicians and their desires to distance themselves from Iran. It also knows that whoever wishes to distance himself will not find what he pursues in the countries of the “others”, whether those others are Arabs or Turks. This, of course, puts aside the major misunderstanding between Al-Sadr and Washington, which is many times bigger than his misunderstanding with Tehran. This fact has not been reckoned by the advocates of the theory that Al-Sadr’s win is a defeat for Tehran in arriving at their conclusion.

While Al-Sadr and Al-Amiri were meeting in Al-Najaf, in close proximity to their own religious authorities, Qasem Suleimani was performing a pilgrimage to Karbala and monitoring what was going on during the meeting. His forced smiles played a part via Skype messages to both negotiation teams.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.