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 When Sistani speaks, Bush
listens
By Ehsan Ahrari
Who
is the most powerful man in Iraq today? Not L Paul
Bremer, the US viceroy of Iraq, not even
Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of the
coalition forces. It is that quiet Shi'ite cleric who is
seldom seen in public, and who does not grant any
interviews, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani.
He communicates with his followers through written
edicts (fatwas), and everyone, including the US
president, listens.
In the initial days after
the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime, he instructed
his followers to abstain from opposing the occupation
forces. His unspoken rationale was generally interpreted
as favoring the US presence. Wrong. He was as much
opposed to the US occupation of his adopted country as
he was to the rule of Saddam Hussein. Except that in the
case of the Americans, he gave them benefit of the
doubt, hoping that their presence would lead to the
emergence of a stable Iraq, especially since the
Americans were hell-bent on eradicating all remnants of
Saddam's rule.
Sistani believes in the
separation of religion and politics; however, the
junk-food version of instant experts on Iraq inside the
United States and those who are part of the Coalition
Provisional Authority (CPA) were quick to confuse his
version of that separation with the Western notion of
separation of church and state - which underscores the
biblical notion of "render unto Caesar the things which
are Caesar's".
Fact of the matter is that
politics is never really separate from religion in a
Muslim country. Turkey, a self-proclaimed secular state,
has proved constantly that Islam has never been absent
from the chambers of power throughout the existence of
the modern Turkish state. That is even more true for
Iraq and Iran, where Shi'ite Islam is the dominant sect.
The least understood aspect of the doctrine of quietism
of Shi'ite Islam is that even when the clerics are
silently protesting the injustices of an existing
political order, they are not exactly totally separating
themselves from politics.
Sistani always knew
what he wanted: the establishment of a Shi'ite-dominated
moderate Islamic democracy. He envisaged the US presence
as a guarantor of that eventuality. More to the point,
the Americans were to safeguard the Shi'ites' right to
be the dominant group, and were to protect them from the
re-emergence of another form of Sunni-dominated tyranny
at the end of Saddam's tyranny.
Even though he
has been in Iraq for several months now, Bremer could
never fathom the nuances of Sistani's thinking. Viceroys
in colonies don't mingle too much with the locals. They
only learn the "truth" from the chosen sycophants who
tell them what they want to hear. This is so true for
Iraq, where the Iraqis have been old practitioners of
never speaking the truth to the powerful ones at a given
time. To them, the Americans only represent the current
fleeting phase of such rulers.
For Sistani,
direct elections in the short run guarantee the
emergence of a Shi'ite-dominated order. For Bremer,
indirect elections guarantee prolongation of US control
on the political future of Iraq. These two visions are
not contradictory, but they are not complementary
either. So Sistani made clear what he wanted last June.
Bremer attempted to change his mind, and he might have
been misled by the intermediaries who were talking to
him and the grand ayatollah. Sistani refused to grant
audience to the foreign viceroy, thereby creating even a
semblance of endorsing the US occupation.
Now,
since the security situation in Iraq seems to be
somewhat calming down and the Americans are pushing more
toward indirect elections, Sistani spoke with
considerable vigor: the Iraqi provisional assembly due
to select a government in June must be elected, not
chosen from regional caucuses, as provided for in a
November 15 agreement reached between Bremer and the
Iraqi Governing Council.
Hojatul Islam Ali
Abdulhakim Alsafi, the second most senior cleric of
Iraq, in a letter to President George W Bush and British
Prime Minister Tony Blair, has adopted a threatening
tone by stating that their refusal to let the Iraqis
chose their own institutions would drag their countries
into a battle they would lose. Needless to say, Alsafi
was saying what Sistani wasn't saying directly and
explicitly, but really meant to say.
Bush is not
interested in turning Shi'ite wrath against the US
occupation forces so close to the presidential elections
in the United States. Chances are that Sistani will have
his wishes granted. Bremer is reported to be consulting
with Bush. But even the emergence of a Shi'ite-dominated
democracy is not likely to mean the surfacing of a
stable or a serene Iraq. There is a lot of fight still
left in the Sunnis of the country. What is definitely
different now is that the Sunnis will no longer look at
the Shi'ites as mere minions, to be abused and ruled. By
urging the Shi'ites to sit on the fence in the initial
days following the ouster of dictatorship in Iraq,
Sistani has assured a dominant political status for the
Shi'ites in the Iraqi arena of power. That is just one
reason why, when he speaks, everyone listens.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an Alexandria,
Virginia, US-based independent strategic analyst.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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