Sadr Talks Big to US Ambassador
While Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's popularity wanes, radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr looks to boost his own appeal with harsh words for the United States.
Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr said June 30 that the future Iraqi prime minister, set to be appointed in 2014, will not deal with the White House, and that any candidate of his movement will “stand against the occupier.”
Sadr’s remarks came in response to a June statement by US Ambassador to Iraq Robert Stephen Beecroft, in which he stated, “The prime minister of the great state of Iraq has to deal with [the US].”
Beecroft told a number of journalists, including an Al-Monitor reporter, on June 26, “Talk about the possibility that Iraq's next prime minister might refuse to deal with the US — if he is affiliated with a party that refuses to deal with the US — is a theoretical matter.”
Beecroft stressed, “Regardless of who will be the prime minister of Iraq, it is hard for a prime minister of an important country such as Iraq not to join or work with the US.”
