BAGHDAD — Leading Iraqi Shiite figures warned Monday against attempts to pull their country into a war between the United States and Iran, saying it would turn Iraq into a battlefield yet again, just as it is on the path to recovery. The warning came hours after a rocket slammed into Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, landing less than a mile from the sprawling U.S. Embassy. On Monday, two influential Shiite clerics and a leading politician – all with close ties to Iran – warned that Iraq could once again get caught in the middle. Populist Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said any political party that would drag Iraq in a U.S.-Iran war “would be the enemy of the Iraqi people.”“This war would mark the end of Iraq,” the black-turbaned al-Sadr warned. It lies on the fault line between Shiite Iran and the mostly Sunni Arab world, led by powerhouse Saudi Arabia, and has long been the setting where Saudi-Iran rivalry for regional supremacy played out.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer May 20, 2019 11:48 UTC