The Guardian: The next prime minister is required to co-exist with demonstrators in more than one pl

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[size=52]The Guardian: The next prime minister is required to co-exist with demonstrators in more than one place[/size]

[size=45]Translated by: Hamid Ahmed
[size=45]The new prime minister, who will be elected by parliament to succeed Adel Abdul Mahdi, will have to cope with a highly volatile situation spreading across the country that has prompted security forces to stand up to protesters for two months. There are growing fears that the country could be completely disintegrated.[/size]
[size=45]Security forces killed at least 45 civilians demonstrating in the city of Nasiriyah on Thursday, in one of the worst incidents to accompany the latest wave of protests against the government. The government's actions were meant to show its barbaric power following Wednesday's attack and burning of the Iranian consulate in Najaf, which was the strongest expression yet of Iraqi demonstrators of anti-Iranian sentiment.[/size]
[size=45]But the repression has only exacerbated resentment across central and southern Iraq, a tense stand-off between bold street protesters and a more entrenched political class.[/size]
[size=45]What is worrying now is whether post-2003 Iraq will survive 16 years after the invasion that toppled the former regime and changed the balance of power in the region.[/size]
[size=45]“After the Americans left Iraq in 2011, the ruling class began to steal more than any time ago,” said Bassam Kazemi, a doctor from Baghdad. “The regime is based on sectarian quotas and everyone is stealing. Citizenship leads it. ”[/size]
[size=45]The theft of state resources by political parties was the main catalyst for the protest movement, led by youths deprived of their legitimate rights joined by other social classes and numbered more than 200,000 people demonstrating peacefully in Baghdad and other cities.[/size]
[size=45]Toby Dodge, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and longtime researcher on Iraq, said the post-2003 regime that instilled corruption in the Iraqi state, as well as sectarianism and coercion, had begun to disintegrate and resulted in an increase in violence.[/size]
[size=45]"A former sectarian system of government based on sectarianism was erected by the United States in Iraq after 2003," he said. "This system of government divided Iraqi society into rival sects, and then the rivalry reached the ranks of the political classes themselves.[/size]
[size=45]"The people are no longer seen as heroic fighters, they are seen as horizontal robbers," Dodge said.[/size]
[size=45]Tribal leaders in southern Iraq, where bloodshed has recently been concentrated, appeared to security forces following the killings, accusing them of being guided by Iranian officials who played a central role in the repression.[/size]
[size=45]Iran has played a prominent role in Iraqi affairs over the periods after the US invasion of the country and has increased that intervention since the withdrawal of US forces in 2011. General Qasem Soleimani has been a central element in the repression directed to take a deadly response began about a month ago.[/size]
[size=45]Tribal leaders in Dhi Qar province demanded that security forces and armed faction leaders be held accountable for the killings in Nasiriyah. A regional official familiar with Iranian policy in the region said that this situation adds new complexity to these developments, which are the most severe faced by Iran in post-Saddam Iraq, noting that they are convinced that the Americans behind it and this indicates confusion.[/size]
[size=45]The Iraqi parliament has 15 days to appoint a new prime minister, but according to previous standards, deals were held for months to appoint a candidate. Failure to reach a transient consensus for partisan quotas could plunge Iraq into an abyss.[/size]
[size=45]Mahmoud al-Qaisi, a blacksmith from eastern Baghdad, says: "If they do, they will end as well as we, but I swear that these thieves have taken their day. We will not return home and cannot continue. It's a revolution. ”[/size]


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