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THE ROVING EYE
SISTANI'S
WAY
Part 2: The marja and the
proconsul
By Pepe Escobar
Part 1:Democracy,
colonial-style
An extremely
discreet and reclusive man, rarely seen in public, Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, born in Iran's holy city of
Mashhad, is the primus inter pares of four great
marjas who lead the roughly 150 million Shi'ites
spread around the world - including Iraq, Iran, India,
Pakistan, the Saudi peninsula and Europe - through the
Hawza, the so-called "Shi'ite Vatican" in Najaf,
Iraq. A great marja - deemed to be infallible -
is the equivalent to a pope: a "source of imitation" -
not only as an interpreter of sacred words, but because
of his intelligence and his knowledge, ranging from
philosophy to the exact sciences.
Sistani rarely
travels and spends most of his time reading, studying
and receiving endless religious delegations in his
small, Spartan study in central Najaf. His organization
controls millions of dollars in donations, but the
marja himself lives like an ascetic. He controls
no army. He leads no political party and he harbors no
political ambitions. Unlike other spiritual leaders, he
never gives major speeches. He never holds press
conferences and he never meets journalists - as Asia
Times Online has found out in Najaf on many occasions.
But any serious observer knows that all it takes is one
word from Sistani for the Shi'ites to embark on a jihad
against the Americans and forever bury the United States
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz-concocted
scenario of a new era of American supremacy in the
Middle East.
Like Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini -
the now-deceased leader of the Iranian Islamic
Revolution of 1979 - Sistani spent many years studying
in Qom, as crucial in Iran as a holy city as Najaf is in
Iraq. The Sistani seminary in Qom is still one of the
most important in the Shi'ite world. According to
insiders in Najaf, when Sistani speaks in Arabic, he
still retains "a vague Persian accent". Khomeini spent
13 years exiled in Najaf and held a status similar to
that of Sistani. But Khomeini never became a
marja - because no living marja at the
time appointed him as such. Another striking difference
is that Khomeini was heavily supportive of
Velayat-e-Faqih - or the primacy of religion over
everything, including politics. Sistani flavors total
separation between mosque and state - because he fears
politics may pollute spiritual matters.
This
leads to the crucial point: Sistani is not in favor of
an Islamic republic in Iraq, a development that although
an anathema in Washington, at the same time would
immensely please the ayatollahs in Tehran. What Sistani
wants is an Iraqi constitution written with no foreign
interference, with no articles contrary to Islam. And he
wants a secular government, but composed of good Muslims
who respect Islamic principles. French expert on
Shi'ism, Pierre-Jean Luizard, explains that Sistani
essentially wants religion to be protected from
politics. But in an occupied Iraq subjected to such
extreme volatility, he cannot but express a political
position - because his is the supreme word.
It
may be pure malice to juxtapose a sayyed
(descendant of Prophet Mohammed) like Sistani with a
blunt, unsophisticated, alleged former counter-terrorism
expert like L Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq.
But whatever the marja says in his small Najaf
studio invariably drives the proconsul - working in a
luxurious Baghdad palace formerly occupied by Saddam
Hussein - crazy. Sistani's fatwas (religious
edicts) are implacable: short and straight to the point.
The marja has qualified the American
"democratization" plans that Bremer seeks to impose as
"not democratic enough", or worse still, "fundamentally
unacceptable".
Sistani had no reason to support
Saddam - who for three decades systematically persecuted
and killed Iraqi Shi'ites. During the war in 2003,
Washington interpreted Sistani's call for the Shi'ites
not to oppose the American army as an endorsement. But
since April 9, 2003 another story has emerged: what most
of Iraq's 15 million Shi'ites see is the military
occupation of holy Islamic lands by an army of infidels.
Sistani's fatwas are the succinct expression of
their outrage.
Sistani may have been crucial in
forcing the Americans to get United Nations Secretary
General Kofi Annan back in the game. However, Annan did
not react as the marja expected. Annan started by
basically repeating the usual American excuses: there
had been no census in Iraq in the past 45 years and all
electoral lists disappeared during the war. Sistani
stood his way, and Annan was forced to send in an UN
exploratory mission to Baghdad. But Annan's priority
remains the end of the occupation - and organizing
"free, just and credible" elections only when security
allows.
Last week at the World Economic Forum in
Davos, Switzerland, Iranian President Mohammed Khatami
expressed what hundreds of millions of Muslims are
feeling all over the world: "The American administration
invaded Afghanistan to find [Osama] bin Laden, where is
bin Laden? The Americans occupied Iraq under the pretext
of installing democracy and finding weapons of mass
destruction. Where are these weapons and where is
democracy?" Khatami also revealed how Iran is closely
monitoring the confrontation between the proconsul and
the marja: "Ayatollah Sistani demanded direct
democracy, and the Americans refuse it. That's what we
have always proposed, one man, one vote." Also in Davos,
John Ruggie, professor of international affairs at
Harvard and an adviser to Annan, has been far from
enthusiastic: "The Bush administration has not changed.
The Americans' attitude does not incite anybody to
cooperate with them."
One of Sistani's sons has
already recognized that "the marja cannot resist
the anti-American popular pressure forever". Ali Hakim
al-Safi, one of Sistani's spokesmen in southern Iraq,
clarified that "we don't want any violence. But if there
is obstruction, the people will take its
responsibilities". Asia Times Online has had credible
information since late 2003 that Shi'ites of all
factions are building a "secret army" to engage the
Americans in case their democratic aspirations are not
met.
Even with all its military might, the US
has never looked so fragile and discredited in Iraq. An
occupying power which refuses democratic elections using
all manners of excuses is being judged by the Islamic
world - and the international community - for what it
is: a neo-colonial power. It has now been proved there
were never any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -
much less the means to deliver them. It is now being
proved the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with
introducing democracy to the Middle East.
The UN
mission - "driving under the [Washington] influence" -
may estimate that direct elections are impossible before
the American-imposed deadline of July 1. US President
George W Bush will then be left with two extremely
unsavory options. The caucuses will proceed in Iraq's 18
provinces, and 15 million Shi'ites will smash - by any
means necessary - the legitimacy of any government that
might emerge. Or the Americans may hold direct elections
- and in this case Sunnis, not only in the Sunni
triangle - will upgrade their already ferocious
guerrilla war to code red, because they will never
accept losing power to Shi'ites. Jihad or civil war:
these are the options ahead.
(Copyright 2004
Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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