Under Reform Mantle, Shi'ite Cleric Fractures Iraqi Politics

After more than a decade of dipping in and out of Iraqi politics, Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shi'ite cleric who first made his name fighting U.S. forces in post-2003 Iraq, is leveraging his enduring popular appeal to again roil Iraq's political order. On April 30, when his supporters invaded the highly fortified Green Zone in the Iraqi capital and overran the parliament building to demand political reforms, it marked a dramatic escalation of a long-simmering standoff between...

© La Voix de l'Amérique - mardi 10 mai 2016