Iraq’s Shi’ite Power Struggle

Reuters: Baghdad’s bloody protests mark resumption of Shi’ite power struggle. This is tagged as “analysis”, which is good, because it can be analyzed differently. The piece asserts that Iran regards Nouri al-Maliki as their loyal ally, while pushing Muqtada al-Sadr to the periphery. This assumes much more certainty about the power structure of Iran than actually exists. Iran has confounded specialists (notice, I did not write “experts”) since the 1979 revolution.

In Iran, Foreign Policy, and Positivism, I wrote,

In the holy city of Qom, clerics churn out commentary, the quantity, aesthetic quality, and popularity of which define the reputation and power of an ayatollah and his school. The anatomy of the state, the veins through which the power flows, and the currency of  legitimate rule are different from any other state in the world today. It is a hybridization of Plato’s Republic (compare Plato’s ruling “guardians” with Iran’s Guardian Council)  with a state structure that until 2005 occasioned significant expression of secular ideas.

Most governments exhibit publicly noticeable obvious divergences of opinion. The Trump administration is the most recent example. But Iran is unique; the government has multiple centers of power, each with apparent license to carry on an independent foreign policy. It is commonly accepted that Iran’s government has three major entities, the secular, the IRG (Republican Guard), and the Qom religious establishment.

Each of these groups has by itself all the functional parts of a national government: sources of revenue, provision of services, court systems, and police powers. At various times, it has been speculated that the power of the IRG eclipsed the religious establishment. This is important, because it underlines the lack of certainty about Iran. Analysts who claim certainty in their analysis are playing to the audience. Adding to the complexity, factions within the Qom establishment have the ability to independently fund foreign policy “initiatives” through Iran’s financially huge and opaque bonyads (foundations.)

Al Monitor’s  “Is Iran about to cut Muqtada al-Sadr loose?” supports the notion that Sadr has become annoying to the Iranians. Statements by Ali Akbar Velayati and Khamenei himself support this.  But, quoting,

The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hossein Jaber Ansari, reacted to rumors of Sadr’s visit to Iran in mid-May 2016 after his supporters had stormed the parliament by saying that the Iraqi cleric was not on an official visit and that “no official meeting has taken place between him and Iranian officials….”

The visit was widely reported. Even the  WSJ picked it up. It may have been “fake news.”  If so, it was made plausible by his prior travels. Sadr spent three years in Iran, in self imposed “exile”.  It wasn’t for the sunshine. As a junior cleric with higher aspirations, most of it was likely in Qom, where he received education from the ultimate masters of Iranian society. Sadr’s family ancestry connects with Iran’s religious establishment. This is not unusual; Ali al-Sistani is Iranian. But it is not a neutral fact.

The search for simple conclusions requires that Iran is a unitary entity. With just one Iran, al-Sadr becomes  either an Iranian puppet or an Iraqi nationalist. But he is more likely  a pawn (with some independent attitude) of a particular Qom faction. In Qom, in quiet rooms of tea-drinking mullahs, religious debate, and constant publication, al-Sadr becomes the tangible expression of ambition in a religious wrapper.

There is no one puppet-master called Iran. The successful predictor will discover a methodology to determine which of the multiple images of  Iran is in ascendance.