ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iraq’s influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Sunday slammed remarks made by US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee as “backward and barbaric,” after the diplomat said Israel has the right to control the Middle East. 

Speaking on Tucker Carlson’s podcast, Huckabee on Friday said “it would be fine if they [Israel] took it all,” after Carlson asked the ambassador about the meaning of a biblical verse sometimes interpreted as saying that Israel has the right to control land stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates. 

His remarks drew vast condemnation from Arab and Islamic countries, with Iraq labeling them a “serious transgression.”

“This dubious fatwa issued by this fool is nothing but a disregard for the blood of innocent people in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq,” Sadr said in a statement. “It is an extension of the killing of thousands.” 

The top cleric further condemned Huckabee’s remarks as a “declaration of the demise of all diplomatic, political, and humanitarian principles.” 

“I call upon all countries to take a serious and unified international political stance to stop this insolence and tyranny, otherwise there will be no escape,” Sadr asserted. 

On Saturday, Iraq’s foreign ministry stressed that Huckabee’s remarks “infringe upon the sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity” of Arab and Muslim states in the region, warning of their negative repercussions to regional security. 

Over a dozen Arab and Islamic countries on Sunday issued a joint statement condemning the US diplomat’s comments as “dangerous and inflammatory,” including the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Syria, Lebanon, and the State of Palestine. 

Iran’s foreign ministry also condemned Huckabee’s remarks, saying they were part of a greater Israeli scheme to expand across the Middle East and showcased a “bold testament” to US complicity “in the Israeli regime’s expansionist wars.”