Iraq’s Shiite political fissures widen

By: Sam Dagher – The Christian Science Monitor

The Sadrist pullout from Iraq’s government highlights a broader political fight within the leading political coalition that is playing out on the street and in parliament.

Monday’s departure of six government cabinet ministers from the Iraqi government will indeed erode support for American-backed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The ministers represented radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, on whom Mr. Maliki relied to take the top government post in Iraq.

But the withdrawal of the Sadrists – who left in protest over the prime minister’s refusal to set a date for the departure of US troops – highlights more troubling developments: widening fissures within the country’s ruling coalition and a brewing Shiite fight for supremacy that threatens to unravel the leading political coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA).

“The fragmentation of the Shiites, and the fights that are taking place, are much more serious than what gets talked about publicly,” says Hosham Dawod, a Paris-based Iraqi academic and author.

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