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Jan 3 will mark 1st anniversary of #Suleimani & Mohandis assassination. Few thoughts on its implications on Iraq and the protest movement away from US & Iran:
1. While it can be argued that both had control over militias & therefore, with their killing, militias have multiplied in Iraq becoming more reckless, violent & criminal, this doesn't mean that Iraq would have been better under their presence/
Both, particularly Suleimani had a strategy implementing specific agenda. Unlike other militias 'leaders in Iraq, Sulemani was canny with an institutional military background. But this doesn't mean anything positive in the grand scheme of things/
2. Miltias in Iraq have been powerful since 2014 and gained more legitimacy fighting IS. Controlling them did not help Iraq. Nor did it prevent the killing, kidnapping and forceful disappearance of innocent/
As of end of Dec last yr, death toll of Iraqi protestors surged to 500 with thousands wounded, dozens kidnapped or assassinated, according to international organisations. Unofficial figures could be much higher/
3. Many argued that their assassination weakened the protest movement, pushing the protestors into a different direction. Instead of pursuing with their demands, protestors had to take a defensive position against both US and Iran/
But, in my opinion, this was not caused by the killing itself. Rather, it was in response to ongoing accusations by political parties exploiting the situation further to undermine, demonise & distort the protestors' image/
4. If anything, the assassination has revealed rather than caused the fragmentation in Iraqi society and, indeed, among protestors themselves/
Sanctification of religious or political leaders is still a huge problem in Iraq, which has been fed and amplified by those in power for the past 17 yrs/
There were celebrations among protestors in Baghdad & elsewhere, who saw the two as terrorist complicit in atrocities against unarmed civilians. But there were also many others mourning their deatg in line w/ the new political position by Sadr, for instance or Marjaiya's stance/
5. Such fragmentation has particularly revealed itself in violent clashes between protestors and Sadr's Blue Caps, who have repeatedly attacked protestors in several provinces, killing and wounding many/
Bottomline: I don't think the assassination benefited Iraq but I also don't believe it was the reason things got worse. Moreover, the protests started to lose momentum for completely different and more complicated reasons entrenched within Iraqi society itself.
