https://themilitant.com/2018/07/28/protests-across-south-iraq-hit-govt-neglect-iran-intrusion/
Protests across south Iraq hit gov’t neglect, Iran intrusion
By Seth Galinsky
Vol. 82/No. 29
August 6, 2018
July 19 protest in Basra, one of many across southern Iraq.
Reuters/Essam al-Sudani
July 19 protest in Basra, one of many across southern Iraq.
Tens of thousands of workers and farmers have joined weeks of protests
in southern Iraq against the government’s failure to provide basic
necessities and opposing Tehran’s military, economic and political
intervention in the country. The actions took place in the midst of a
drought and a heat wave where temperatures reached 122 degrees.
This predominantly Shiite area of Iraq provided the bulk of the militia
fighters who were used as cannon fodder in Baghdad’s war against Islamic
State in the north. With the end of the war seven months ago, working
people are angry over government inaction in face of a lack of
electricity, water and jobs.
An indication of the impact of the war runs along the road from Najaf to
Karbala. Every 50 yards hangs a photo of a member of the Popular
Mobilization Forces Shiite militias, some organized by Tehran, who died
in the war.
A militia member who was wounded three times during the war spoke to
Rudaw news agency at the protest in Baghdad July 20. “It has been seven
months since they cut my salary,” he said. “Is this how they reward
those who defend the country?”
The protests began in the midst of negotiations to form a new government
in Baghdad following the May elections. Disillusioned with the
capitalist parties, voter turnout was the lowest in years, just 44.5
percent.
Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr — who once led a militia that fought U.S.
troops following the second Iraq war in 2003 — led a coalition that
included the Stalinist Communist Party, Sunni organizations and others.
It came in first place with 54 seats in the 329 seat parliament.
Al-Sadr says he opposes both the presence of U.S. troops in the country
as well as interference from Tehran. His coalition’s campaign centered
on promises to fight corruption.
The Tehran-allied Shiite alliance Fatah came in second with 47 seats,
and the bloc led by current Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi came in third
with 42, but no party won anywhere near enough seats to govern alone.
Tehran’s counterrevolutionary meddling
The arrival of foreign “mediators” — in reality representatives of the
counterrevolutionary politics of Tehran — including Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps leader Qasem Soleimani from Iran as well as
Hezbollah representatives from Lebanon to help put together a new ruling
coalition is widely resented.
The Iranian rulers seek to dominate Iraq, its longtime rival, and
consolidate a land route to Lebanon to aid its ally Hezbollah. Tehran
has used the Shiite militias it controls in Iraq to recruit Iraqis to
fight alongside its forces in Syria where it has also entrenched its
military.
Many protests focused anger on offices of Shiite militias and parties
with close ties to Iran. Protesters in Najaf July 13 called the
Tehran-backed militias and parties “Safavids,” a reference to the
dynasty that ruled the Persian Empire starting in the 1500s and imposed
Shiite Islam as the state religion.
The protests began July 8 in Basra, in the heart of the predominantly
Shiite southern provinces and Iraq’s main oil fields, and rapidly spread
to eight other provinces and to Baghdad, Iraq’s capital. Demonstrators
blocked roads, protested outside oil facilities and stormed government
and Tehran-backed militia offices.
Iraq’s electric grid at best provides 13,000 megawatts of power per
hour, far short of demand that can reach 21,000 megawatts. The power
outages worsened after the Iranian government, facing the possibility of
stepped-up U.S. sanctions and a dispute over Iraqi payments, stopped
selling 1,200 megawatts to Iraq.
After two weeks of protests, the Kuwaiti government began sending daily
shipments of fuel for Iraqi generating stations and the Saudi government
also pledged support, seeing the crisis as an opportunity to counter
Tehran’s influence in Baghdad.
‘Fed up’ with Iraqi, Iranian rulers
“We are fed up with this situation,” Um Faten, whose son was shot at one
of the protests, told CNN in the city of Amara in mid-July. “Our sons
had no other solution but to go out and protest. I want my children to
live a normal life.”
In the city of Nasriyya in Dhi Qar province thousands marched, singing,
“Iran, Iran, we don’t want you anymore, Dhi Qar will not shut up anymore.”
In a failed attempt to stop the protests, the government suspended
flights to and from the city of Najaf. Specialized police and
counterterrorism units were sent to intimidate protesters. As of July 21
at least four persons had been killed, many wounded and hundreds arrested.
Prime Minister Abadi, al-Sadr and other bourgeois leaders offered to
meet with the protest organizers, but were refused. At some of the July
20 protests, people chanted, “The people want the downfall of political
parties.”
Abadi promised that he would increase funds for electricity and water
projects in Basra, where tap water is often brown because of dirt, and
immediately create 10,000 jobs.
“The promises they make are all lies,” Khaled Hassan, 42, a health care
worker in Basra, told Reuters July 20.
Protests continue in Iran
Meanwhile, protests continue in Iran. At the end of June three days of
protests rocked Tehran, including its Grand Bazaar, as well as other
towns and cities around the country, including Bandar Abbas, Tabriz,
Mashhad and Isfahan.
In early July protests erupted in Abadan and Khorramshahr over the
shortage of drinking water. Police arrested hundreds of participants.
Khorramshahr is in the mostly Arab province of Khuzestan, just across
the border from Basra. In October 1980, during the Iran-Iraq war, the
regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq succeeded in capturing the city after
bloody fighting. The Iranian army retook the city in May 1982, suffering
heavy casualties.
The Iranian rial has fallen drastically against the U.S. dollar in
recent months sparking renewed inflation, making life more difficult for
working people.
Like the protests that swept Iran at the end of last year, the
demonstrations were marked by opposition to Tehran’s
counterrevolutionary intervention in the war in Syria and its financing
and backing of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Along
with slogans of “Death to high prices,” some protesters chanted, “Let go
of Syria, think about us,” “Our enemy is right here, but they falsely
claim [our enemy] is the U.S.” “No to Gaza, no to Lebanon,” “Death to
Palestine” and “We don’t want the ayatollahs.”
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •Socialist Workers Party launches 2018 campaigns:
Meet the working-class candidates
•Socialist Workers Party launches 2018 campaigns: SWP statement
•Protests across south Iraq hit gov't neglect, Iran intrusion
•New openings for working class as imperialist 'world order' unravels
•Protesters demand 'release video!' in cop shooting of Chicago barber
Feature Articles •Wendy Lyons: ‘A political leader of the working class’
Also In This Issue •Woman’s right to abortion is debated in Northern Ireland
•Protests oppose Russian rulers’ moves to raise age for pensions
•Protests across Nicaragua in making for over a decade
On the Picket Line •Locked-out National Grid utility workers rally in Boston
•Striking silver miners rally at bosses’ Idaho headquarters
•New Zealand nurses strike for increased pay, staffing
•Striking Vermont nurses win widespread solidarity
Books of the Month •1979 Nicaraguan Revolution posed road for workers power
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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