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The Sistani supremacy

By Phil Barron ⋅ December 21, 2006 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ Post a comment

One of these men will determine the future of Iraq

There was once a time - seems a lifetime ago - when Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s foremost Shiite cleric, seemed the most indispensable man in all of that tortured land. He forced the United States to accept one-person, one-vote elections in Iraq, making his case by bringing thousands of protestors to the street; he compelled wildcard Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to agree to a peace plan that would force armed fighters and foreign forces from the cities of Najaf and Kuba.

Sistani was the most revered figure in the Shia sphere and the closest thing to a national figure to be found in Iraq - but his rather deliberate style and non-violent approach did not sway the embittered young and poor among the Shia who desired vengeance against their Sunni rivals and the American occupier. The star of the firebrand Sadr was bound to rise in such an environment, favored as he became by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. In comparison, Sistani receded from view, his comparative influence waning - until now.

Middle East scholar Juan Cole wrote yesterday on a New York Times story positing that Sistani had given his blessing to a new parliamentary coalition that would freeze out the Sadr Movement. This ostensible new Iraqi order - to include the Sunni fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front, the Kurdistan Alliance, the Shia fundamentalist SCIRI, and the National Iraqi List headed by once-interim PM Ayad Allawi - would theoretically manage enough seats to be able to name a prime minister and leave the Sadrists on the outs. Professor Cole expressed considerable skepticism that such an alliance of disparate forces (a measure preliminary to an American/Iraqi military move against Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia) could actually succeed, and suggests that Sadr might just as easily manage to block the formation of a new government.

Still, the very notion that the nation’s most prominent cleric would lend his authority to such a plan may have prompted Sadr to rethink his position, according to the AP:

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is considering a one-month unilateral cease-fire and may push his followers to rejoin the political process, three weeks after they walked out of parliament and the Cabinet to protest the prime minister’s meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush, officials close to the anti-American militia leader said Wednesday.

Al-Sadr’s call for a halt to fighting could come after Thursday, when a delegation representing the seven Shiite groups that form the largest bloc in Iraq’s parliament is to travel to the holy city of Najaf to meet separately with al-Sadr and the country’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Shiite officials said on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the talks. Officials from several factions confirmed the planned trip to Najaf.

The visit is intended to allow the bloc, the United Iraqi Alliance, to work out some of Iraq’s biggest political obstacles in front of al-Sistani, and to pressure al-Sadr to rein in his fighters and rejoin politics — or face isolation, participants said. Until the walkout, al-Sadr’s faction had been an integral part of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s governing coalition.

It turns out that Sistani is not yet as toothless as some might have thought, and that there are political forces that even Sadr must take into consideration. This reassertion of authority by Sistani comes at a critical time, and rational participants can only hope that it has been taken in time. Sadr’s Mehdi Army has grown to perhaps 60,000 members, and it is not at all clear that Sadr exercises firm control over all of them. Should Sistani succeed in drawing his fellow cleric back into the tent, he may yet have to contend with Sadr’s more intransigent followers.

Update: Well, we all know how that turned out. Steve Gilliard, God rest him, had the right take on this after all - Sadr became the more influential figure after all.

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