The lethal protests pitting Iraq’s main Shiite factions against each other have prompted the country’s Kurds to play peacemaker, a high-wire balancing act that looks increasingly hard to sustain in the face of Iraq’s unremitting dysfunction.
The violence erupted Monday when powerful Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr announced that he was “retiring” from politics. This triggered a bloody confrontation between Iraqi security forces, including members of the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Units, and his supporters who stormed the presidential palace. The fighting left at least 23 people dead.
