‘We will not bow to America,’ says State of Law’s Haidar Al-Lami

BAGHDAD — Sheikh Haidar Al-Lami, a leader in the Nouri Al-Maliki’s State of Law Coalition, firmly rejected any submission to U.S. demands during an interview with Al-Rasheed TV, declaring, “We will not bow to America, and we have never bowed to it.”

Al-Lami said that the Popular Mobilization Forces were created to address “exceptional circumstances.” He insisted that any discussion of dissolving these forces should occur “through mutual understanding” and only under stable conditions.

Excerpts Haidar Al-Lami’s interview with Al-Rasheed TV:

We will not bow to America, and we have never bowed to it. Not everything America demands will be implemented. When they brought the first draft of the bilateral agreement, Al-Maliki threw it back at them, and Mr. Mashhadani was present and can testify to that.

We coexisted with Trump era, got to know him, and remained present. The Popular Mobilization Forces were approved under the dome of Parliament, and the resistance was created for exceptional circumstances in the country. Anyone who wants to dissolve it should sit with them and let them dictate their conditions if they decide to disband.

Regardless of the respected Mr. Ammar Al-Hakim and what he recently said, if anyone wants to flatter America, that is their business. As for us, we say there will be no change in Iraq except through elections, and anyone seeking otherwise is far removed from what the constitution states.

America is now at its weakest, indebted by trillions of dollars, and all it can do is bully. When Obama came to Iraq, he begged to meet with Sayyid Al-Sistani for even five minutes, and yet he was refused. This is how we deal with America.

Prime Minister Al-Sudani’s visit to the Islamic Republic of Iran was to understand what is happening in this camp and to grasp the general situation. There is ambiguity in the current circumstances and in the days to come. The more international rounds there are, the more Iraq secures its internal and external position, especially with the arrival of the new American president.

We all stand behind Al-Sudani. In the State of Law coalition, we have supported every prime minister, even when we were not part of the government. If there is a request to hand over the weapons of the resistance, and this is not far-fetched, it must be done through mutual understanding. The resistance was created under exceptional circumstances and is supposed to dissolve under normal circumstances. This is a matter to be decided internally, not externally.