ABSTRACT
Badr started organizational life as the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), both Iranian efforts to consolidate and control Iraqi opposition against Saddam Hussein. After the 1991 uprising in Iraq that Badr supported and abandoned, the organization ingrained itself with the US ahead of the 2003 invasion. This enabled SCIRI/Badr to secure a strong position in the Iraqi Governing Council as a power basis for its return, supported by Badr shifting from an anti-government coercive profile against Hussein to a quasi-government coercive profile supporting the US. The Iraqi elections of 2005 allowed SCIRI/Badr to establish themselves in the Iraqi administration, especially the Ministry of the Interior. As US influence decreased and Iraqi sovereignty increased, Badr shifted to a hybrid coercive profile to compete for power with several other Iraqi factions. It maintained this profile until 2022 with various shifts in the balance between cooperation and competition, depending on its closeness to government. Badr used the fight against Islamic State to establish a strong multidimensional power platform and became a political actor in its own right. By helping repress the 2019 protests and joining the Al-Sudani government, it shifted to a government coercive profile as Badr and its allies now control most of it.
