US does not favor political reforms in Iraq: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with Sabah Jawad, the director of Iraqi Democrats Against Occupation from London, to discuss the recent popular demonstrations in the Iraqi capital city of Baghdad demanding extensive reforms in the country’s political system.   

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: What exactly is going on in Baghdad in your perspective?

Jawad: What we are seeing in Baghdad is the collapse of the political system, the political system that was stolen by the American occupation in 2003. We see state institutions, which are not working at all and working against the wish of the people. We see parliament which cannot meet, which cannot legislate new laws. We see a government who is not capable of achieving any service for its people and their economic situation is in dire conditions. The presidency is not working, the judiciary is not working. Corruption is in every corner of the state institutions and in every country in the world when there is a corrupt minister who embezzled millions and hundreds of millions of dollars normally is being considered as a traitor and put in prison. In Iraq, these kinds of ministers are not touched. They are moved from one ministry to another and in practice some of them are promoted to other ministries.

The American Biden visited Iraq in the last couple of days actually to rescue the political system they installed in Iraq, threatening the Iraqis that actually if they don’t stick to this political system or break loose, they will not help in the fight against ISIS (Daesh) and the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund will not give any loans to Iraq and this dire financial situation after the collapse of the oil revenue as well. So, what we are seeing before our eyes is that the whole system in Iraq is not working and needs to be changed completely and this is the demand of our people.

Press TV: At this point in time, what do you think is going to happen? Obviously there are a lot of tensions as you said.

Jawad: I think there is no alternative actually to continue this struggle because this struggle is vital for Iraq future. This struggle is vital to fight ISIS and to achieve victory against ISIS because the Americans are pretending they are helping the Iraqis in fighting ISIS, actually they used this pretext to get back to Iraq and they are … every day in fact maintaining this political system which actually allowed ISIS to flourish in the first place and therefore we have to on a economic ground, on a social ground, on a political ground, we have to get rid of this system and build a system which is truly democratic and represented the Iraqi people regardless of their faith and the sectarian backgrounds or any kind of deviations. What the Americans did is to divide the Iraqi people. People started talking like they are Sunni or Shia or Kurds or Turkmen and so on.

We want to keep our identities as Iraqis, united identities for the interest of the whole of Iraq and not the interest of one sector of the society against another. They created a political system which absolutely does not work. The similar to the Lebanese situation where they have been trying for years actually to elect the president, elect the prime minister. It is very difficult to achieve that and there is a sectarian system which was created in Lebanon by the French. The Americans applied this same political system in Iraq which is not working at all. We want to get rid of the Americans because they are the root of the problems in Iraq.        

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk