Dangerous Allegiances Could Cost Iraq's Prime Minister

Uniting Iraq's many factions has been no easy task for Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, but lately his struggle to maintain national cohesion seems to have intensified. On April 30, thousands of supporters of Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr stormed Baghdad's Green Zone, breaching the concrete perimeter around the city's diplomatic areas for the first time in history. And yet, as the protesters flooded into the zone, Defense and Interior Ministry security forces appeared to make no move to stop them. While realistically the security forces could have done little to block the entry of so many determined people, there were reports of demonstrators going so far as to kiss the guards as they passed through the gates. Though there are a number of plausible explanations for these events, it is possible that they signal a burgeoning partnership between al-Abadi and al-Sadr — one that could prove as risky as it is beneficial to Iraq's prime minister.