Muqtada al-Sadr - Iraq's Most Powerful Figure

Video from 2015. If you want to know what's going on in Iraq this year, you need to know who is Muqtada al-Sadr.

Muqtada al-Sadr is a Shia cleric and major political figure in Iraq. His party gained the largest # of seats in the 2018 but didn't make himself prime minister.

He is an Iraqi nationalist but is also a pragmatist, having worked with both Iran and US in the past.

Why he matters

A few days ago, millions of Iraqis (Baghdad police estimate 2.5 million) demonstrated in the streets. 

They did this because al-Sadr called for a million man march against US troop presense there.

They flew strictly Iraqi flags, on his instructions.

There are now rumours he's calling on a protest at the US embassy in Baghdad. It's not far from Sadr City (notice the name? it's no coincidence).

Oh yeah, and he has his own army of 10,000-50,000 (Mahdi Army / Peace Brigades) which he re-activated immediately following the assassination of Iran's top counter-terrorism General Qassem Soleimani.

He's arguably the most powerful political figure in Iraq and he's asking nicely for the US troops to leave.

SecState Pompeo is ignoring his request & is going to get people killed. Pompeo thinks he can get shit done with colour revolution ops (violent anti-government demonstrations etc) & the usual bribery & blackmail to pressure the Iraqi government to allow US troops to stay.