A situation that leaves no room for trial and error
Hard and sensitive days of Mustafa Al-Kazemi
The political movement in Iraq these days has become so subtle that it leaves no room for trial and error. Politicians and statesmen must be in control of affairs in such a way that they do not allow the existing fragility to turn into a heavy defeat and crisis. The forthcoming elections in October could be a turning point in the transition to a more stable political situation. A tough test that can affect many of the current equations in Iraq.
Political tensions in Iraq are not new today. Iraq has had such days for a long time. It can even be said that he had more difficult days than all this; Much harder than this. When an Iraqi official points a finger at the west of Baghdad and says that ISIL had reached a few kilometers here and we were afraid it would reach Baghdad and enter the Khazra region and finish the job, it shows that Iraq is having a hard time. It has had more than that. Although we feel that those days were far away, when we look closely, we see that they were not far away.
Apart from the tensions and crises of the first decade of the new millennium, ISIL 2014 was in Iraq; 2016 The Iraqi government, with the help of al-Hashd al-Shabi, which was formed by the fatwa of the authority and is now considered one of the most important military-security pillars of Iraq, fought it and gathered its resources by the end of 2017. 2018 was the year of change in Iraq, but it was not long before the October 2019 demonstrations took place, and for the first time since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraqi protesters felt they could take to the streets to change the government and its leadership. , Former Iraqi prime minister forced to resign. All this shows that Iraq has not been in a year of political tension for almost a year.
Now that we are getting closer to the election date in October, competitions, coalitions, and political alliances can fuel excitement and possibly political inflammation and tension.
Last Tuesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Kazemi seriously felt the tide of violent protests against his government. According to Deutsche Welle, the protests left at least one person dead and dozens injured. Kazemi, who came out of his office at the beginning of the night and after the end of his office work and watched the demonstrations closely, felt clearly and closely.
How quickly can a country suffer from a lack of services, unemployment rise, and grapple with multiple economic crises caused by corruption, inefficiency, the corona epidemic, and over-government of the economic structure? The anger of people is frustrated, tired, depressed, and most importantly young people who desperately need work and hope for a better and guaranteed future. Last Tuesday’s demonstrations, although limited, were perhaps a simple test for Kazemi; But he must understand and be realistic that this simple test can quickly and incredibly turn into a difficult test that is tedious to solve. The same thing happened to Adel Abdul Mahdi, and despite the efficiency, he could have had, the government eventually overthrew him and forced him to resign.
Within hours of Tuesday’s demonstration, Kazemi faced a new crisis. The arrest of Qassim Mosleh, the commander of al-Hashd al-Shabi in Anbar, became a new crisis for Kazemi, which led to the siege of his home in al-Khadra by loyalist forces. Who was right and what the accident was about is not the subject of this debate. What is at stake here is the high political sensitivity that exists in Iraq, in the shadow of which a seemingly small and trivial incident can turn into a serious crisis. A crisis that, in the shadow of the fragility of political stability and growing social and economic pressures, can quickly turn into a widespread and challenging serious tension.
Some Iraqis who have come from abroad to help the central government-run their affairs are disappointed with the future of their country, telling each other over the phone that they are disappointed and tired, and would prefer to continue if this situation continues. Let them return to their country and leave the Iraqi political scene alone.
Disappointment and frustration is one of the aspects of the political scene, but this aspect should not become the dominant aspect in any way, in which case it can become an unwanted and unbelievable event and strongly affect the whole process of the country. Similar things have happened many times in Iraq and elsewhere, such as what happened in Egypt and the wrong play and political violence of a figure like Mohamed ElBaradei that led to the coup of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and led the country in an unpredictable way and revived the dictatorship guided.
