Iraq protesters to government: Listen to us (not to Iran)
Rasoul Adel has been wounded three times at the front lines of Iraq’s increasingly violent antigovernment protests. But that has made him only more determined to see the country’s political elite uprooted, wholesale.
Canisters of military-grade tear gas – heavier than those normally used for crowd control, and shot directly into crowds – twice smashed into his leg, breaking his right shin. A percussion grenade exploded on his back.
But like hundreds of thousands of protesting fellow Iraqis, disenfranchised by a corrupt and sectarian political system that has failed to convert Iraq’s vast oil wealth into wider prosperity and jobs, Mr. Adel knows what he wants, even if he can’t articulate the next steps to get there.
The resignation of Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, on
Iraq’s top cleric speaks outBut how do you define victory?
