Qais al-Khazali

They believe that they can even rehabilitate a militia.

I mean, whenever Iraqis would go out protesting, it all ends up in a, a diplomat taking a photo with Qais al-Khazali or other terrorist on the, uh, on the Iraqi soil.

And then it ends every, every, every Iraqi aspiration to, to, to get rid of that, of that, uh, corruption and that regime.

And also the, the, the, the way the United States behaved in Iraq, once again favored and always preferred people like the sectarian Maliki and his entourage.

So, uh, yes, right now we have, uh, different, uh, actors from a bit of a different generation, from a younger generation.

One of the most interesting actors right now, I think, is Qais al-Khazali, whom I also portrayed a bit in the book.

Because in a way he's, um, he, uh...

he studied under Mohammed Sadeq as-Sadr, under Moqtada al-Sadr's father, and if you look at the, um, ideological orientation of the group or of, uh, of his movement is very much Sadrist.

Um, I think we should be very careful with, with such narratives because the model that I observe here is a weakened Iran would give them an impetus to rethink how their faction or how their movement can still be in service to the Muqawama project, but also preserve its domestic standing, and I think this is what we're seeing with groups-

Mm.

... like, uh, um, Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq from Qais al-Khazali, and this is very much connected to the project or the vision that he has about Dawlat al-Muqawama-

Mm-hmm

It was almost as if he had to ask them permission to move forward with things.

And of course, early on in the Sudanese government, there is the famous quote by coordination framework member Qais al-Khazali, who said that the prime minister is like a director general that reports to the coordination framework.

So the question here that I have is, hasn't the coordination framework naturally evolved from just a simple government formation mechanism?

Yeah, I think the answer to that question lies in the way that Ilham Hammoudi framed the discussion on the future directory of the coordination framework.

Speaking of these deputy prime minister positions, Ali, could you please tell us what the latest is on when we can expect the government to be formed and for Zaidi to have a complete cabinet?

Well, there's still ongoing disagreements both within the Shia camp and the Sunni and Kurdish camps over who gets what outstanding positions.

And this is something that Qais al-Khazali spoke about recently in one of his televised interviews, whereby he emphasized the fact that a lot of these issues still have not been resolved, but there is again an aspiration to hold a session of parliament soon.

Now, whether that will take a couple of weeks or another month or two, it's still not clear.