Is Iraq steering towards post-sectarianism? I think there is some intellectual laziness in describing some non-traditional/governing parties as "populist". This is the adjective that has been (mis/ab) used in Europe as well. I also think that the support of the protests by the highest Shi'a authority is indicative. It aims at absorbing the anger, but also a move that is aware of the growth of the Sadrist movement. After all, this same authority has been generally complicit for more than a decade and has not mobilised the Shi'a (the majority) for economic and social rights.
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51