
Al -Kazemi in Baghdad, December 2021 (Mortada Al -Sudani/Anatolia)
Former Prime Minister Mustafa Al -Kazemi returned to Baghdad, on February 25, after his departure from the country since he was handed over to the prime minister at the end of October 2022 to his successor, Muhammad Shi’a Al -Sudani, and the previous assassination attempt he suffered in November 2021.
Mustafa Al -Kazemi’s return
Al -Kazemi, who has returned and has taken the headquarters of the Green Zone, held several political meetings during the past two weeks with various Iraqi leaders, including members of the ruling coalition “the coordination framework”, the most prominent of whom was Ammar al -Hakim (head of the Al -Hikma stream), and also conducted a visit to the Kurdistan region and held a series of meetings with the Kurdish leaders there. Al -Kazemi did not announce the purpose of his return, or the reason for his disappearance originally from Iraq and the political scene, which allowed the “unknown” political sources and speculation, some of which would be “information”, in the local Iraqi media, to go on the reasons for this return.
Parties went to the demonization of the return of Al -Kazemi, considering it supported by external powers
The period of the Kazemi government, which spanned for two years and about five months (from May 7, 2020, until October 29, 2022), witnessed non -simple confrontations with various Iraqi armed factions, during his attempt to impose government decisions at the time, the most prominent of which was the arrest of several prominent figures in the “popular crowd” on charges of assassinating activists and civilians, and ended with an attempt to assassinate him through three paths A bombing targeted his house in Baghdad on November 7, 2021, and closed the investigation without revealing its results. Note that the assassination attempt occurred after Iraq, early legislative elections on October 10 of that year, and their final results, which announced in late November, showed the decline of the forces backed by the “crowd” and Iran, in exchange for the “Sadrist movement” of the results. The assassination attempt, which no party had adopted at a time when Baghdad was living on the impact of high political tensions, and the Green Zone, where the headquarters of Mustafa Al -Kazemi witnessed in November sit -ins and demonstrations of the factions backed by Tehran, in rejecting the results.
The return of Mustafa Al -Kazemi today to Baghdad, just seven months before the date in which the parliamentary elections scheduled for the end of this year will be held 2025, in references that may enhance the possibilities of his return to political life through a new or ancient party, and several personalities close to it, with which the “New Arab” continued, confirmed that he decided to return to influence the Iraqi political scene. Al -Kazemi settled after his return in a house inside the Green Zone, which was mainly the headquarters of the “Iraqi Memory” Foundation for documenting crimes and violations of the former Iraqi regime (Saddam Hussein), which was founded by the activist and politician Kanaan Makiya. The house is located side by side, with the home of former Prime Minister Nuri al -Maliki.
Al -Kazemi’s return caused different reactions between welcome and rejecting it, and those who considered it normal, as the former Iraqi Prime Minister is not accused of any issue listed with the Iraqi judiciary, at a time when parties went towards attacking this return, considering it supported by “external powers”, and carrying external messages to Iraq, in a hint to the good man’s relationship with Washington during his government, as well as with Arab countries highlighted. The first figures that visited Al -Kazemi after his return to Baghdad, the head of the Al -Hikma Movement, Ammar al -Hakim, who is associated with Al -Kazemi with an old relationship, then former Parliament Speaker Salim al -Jabouri, civil and liberal figures, and prominent journalists and activists, and these visits were interpreted that Al -Kazemi seeks to collect political support and media support from various Iraqi parties.
Al -Kazemi was not subjected to any threat or harassment after his return, according to sources close to him
Sources close to Al -Kazemi, “Al -Arabi Al -Jadeed”, reported that “the danger is still based on Al -Kazemi’s life, or the threat of his activities and his movements, but he was not subjected to any harassment or threat after his return to Baghdad.” This indicates that the movements of Mustafa Al -Kazemi are calculated, and are only done according to complex security measures, given his deep differences with some armed parties, which stormed the green zone more than once during his reign, threatened him through its media and attacked and overlooked, due to his critical positions and the arrest of some of its leaders, such as the leader of the “Hashd” Qasim Musleh, who was arrested in May 2021.
The lawyer and political analyst Amir Al -Sulei, who is one of the persons close to Al -Kazemi, stressed that the latter “is still part of the political process, and that the issue of his engagement in a political project is available, which is a transit mosque project for sectarianism that believes in the state and partnership to serve Iraq, especially after his experience in heading the government, which is largely successful.” Al -Quda’i described Al -Kazemi’s audience as “private”, and said that he is “an audience that believes in civilization and the state with its institutions, and therefore electoral competition is a legitimate right, and that Al -Kazimi has international and regional relations, he wants to fly for the benefit of Iraq on the basis of common interests, not dependency.”
Al -supporter stressed in his conversation with Al -Arabi Al -Jadeed, that “Al -Kazemi is not a carrier of the messages, and this is a word that contradicts the truth, because it is greater than being a postman by virtue of his position, and that the change in the Iraqi regime is nothing more than a scarecrow that some parties are trying to spread to intimidation, so there is no change except through the ballot box through the will of the Iraqi people, and no will over his will, and that the Al -Kazemi project is a civilian, transient, and transcendent project for sectarianism And the regionalism.
Regarding the relationship of Al -Kazemi to the leader of the Sadrist movement Muqtada al -Sadr, Al -Quda’i stressed that this relationship is “solid, firm and built on a common basis that is the interest of Iraq.
“Takes” chasing Al -Kazemi
On the other hand, the former deputy in the Iraqi parliament, Kazem Al -Sayyadi, who is one of the members of the ruling coalition “the coordination framework”, said that “the return of Mustafa Al -Kazemi will not affect the political scene, because it does not carry any political thought, and that the stage of his choice as prime minister was one of the worst stages of Iraq, and Al -Kazemi has increased negative and failed in most of the files that he promised to implement during his rule.”
Amir Al -support
Al -Sayyadi said in an interview with Al -Arabi Al -Jadeed, that “Al -Kazemi is accused of more than one charge, including theft of the century, and the martyrdom of the leaders of victory (Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi Al -Muhandis in January 2020), and he must be investigated regarding the charges against him.” In Iraq, it was announced that it was known for the steadfastness of the century during the reign of Al -Kazemi in 2022, against the backdrop of fake companies participating in theft and withdrawal of about $ 2.5 billion of money deposited by the major oil companies in their tax accounts using fake papers and checks.
Al -Sayyadi considered that “Al -Kazemi is political and electorally rejected, and he does not have any good relations internally, but he may have good external relations.” Taha Abu Ragheif from the Ministry of Interior), which contributed to the torture of officials, and blackmailed their families, not to mention its deep disputes with the popular crowd and the Islamic resistance factions.
As for the civil political activist, Barakat Ali Mahmoud, he pointed out that “Al -Kazemi does not seek to challenge anyone, whether the factions or political forces, and when he was at the highest power, he did not seek a political or security clash with them, but rather wanted to impose the authority of the state on everyone in a way of political dialogue or in a calm security way, but these forces were the one who tried to collide with him because of his attempt to this.” He emphasized that “the factions realized that Al -Kazemi was not in a state of hostility with them, and the evidence is that no external party was allowed to strike any small or large element of them during his government.”
Mahmoud said, in an interview with “Al -Arabi Al -Jadeed”, that “Mustafa Al -Kazemi has a political program that establishes an electoral project, and it is not unlikely that this project will be in alliance with civilian forces close to his known civil orientation, but before that there are several obstacles, including the love of leadership among some civil forces, while in fact that the civilization in Iraq needs today to a father”, as he put it. He explained that “Iraqi diplomacy really needs to return to the glow of the Kazemi stage, which formed a milestone in the history of Iraqi relations in the Arab, regional and international environment, until Iraq then became a meeting point that actually led to the end of international differences, the most important of which is the Iranian -Saudi dispute,” according to his opinion.