The following excerpts are from an interview with Iraqi Shiite Leader Muqtada Al-Sadr, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on April 1, 2010.

Muqtada Al-Sadr: With regard to the referendum, I have only one reservation. If a Sadrist from the Al-Ahrar bloc is elected, I will oppose him, because I don’t want people from this bloc to shake hands with the occupation. It would be difficult for me to accept a PM from the Al-Ahrar bloc, yet we are deliberating this now. But on the other hand, the referendum…

Interviewer: You don’t want a Sadrist PM so he won’t have to shake hands with whom?

Muqtada Al-Sadr: I’m not saying I don’t want this, only that it is being deliberated. If we must – so be it. If there is nobody who can manage Iraqi affairs, we may turn to someone from the Sadrist movement or the Al-Ahrar bloc.

Interviewer: This is proof that you have begun to play the game of politics. You are saying this so that the others will know that the Sadrist movement and Muqtada Al-Sadr may present a candidate.

Muqtada Al-Sadr: That’s possible. Why not? We are part of the people, part of the political process, and part of the military resistance, and so on. This path is open to us. But even if the referendum does not support the Al-Ahrar bloc and the Sadrists, I will still be bound by it.

[...]

Interviewer: There is a security agreement that is supposed to be implemented in 2011. What is your view on this? Isn’t this an achievement of Al-Maliki and his government, in your opinion? They signed an agreement guaranteeing the withdrawal of the US troops. When this agreement is implemented and the US troops withdraw, will you consider Iraq to have been liberated or not?

Muqtada Al-Sadr: I was, and I continue to be, one of the opponents of this agreement.

Interviewer: You don’t consider it an achievement of Al-Maliki?

Muqtada Al-Sadr: No, I consider it a failure. We will not consider Iraq to be liberated by this agreement. We will only consider it to be liberated when every single [foreign] soldier has left our sacred Iraqi soil. The military bases too – not only the soldiers… The soldiers, the companies, the intelligence agencies, and the bases – only when they all have left can we consider Iraq to be liberated. Until this happens, Iraq lacks sovereignty and lacks independence.