What Ayatollah Sistani Wants

[NNN0LHI]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6920681/site/newsweek /

He refuses a new air conditioner, yet his office is Internet-wired. He wants women to take political office, but not to shake the hands of men outside their families. He is easily the most powerful man in Iraq. Yet he's an Iranian.

Feb. 14 issue - It's interesting that most published accounts describe Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani as a tall, slender man, towering over his aides and visitors. Actually he's on the short side, about 5 feet 8, but the error is understandable. The housebound cleric has hardly set foot out of his tiny abode in the slums of Najaf in six years. He never gives speeches, never even presides at Friday prayers at the golden-domed Imam Ali shrine, the holiest place in Shiite Islam, only a few hundred feet from his home. But he does receive visitors, hundreds a day, normally, always seated on a thin cushion on the floor of his barrani, or receiving room, wearing a gray robe that is often threadbare, and a large black turban. He won't be photographed (the few grainy images of him were taken without official permission), and he never gives interviews. He is the very picture of an ascetic Islamic prelate, a picture that would not have looked much different if it had been painted five centuries ago. His visitors invariably leave impressed, often describing the encounter in mystic terms; small wonder they remember him as tall.

This is the image that Sistani has carefully crafted over the years, but there's another side to it. He may live humbly and poor, but he also presides over a multimillion-dollar network of charities and religious foundations from Pakistan to England. He may not get out very much, but he has a highly developed network of representatives in every Shia neighborhood in Iraq. One of his sons-in-law runs an Internet company with 66 employees in the Iranian city of Qom, and Sistani's own office is one of the best-wired in Iraq. The interim government installed a T-1 connection to the Internet, so his representatives can stay in touch by e-mail. When he has new visitors, his staff Googles them and prints out a briefing paper. When folks in Baghdad, 90 miles north, need to call his office, they dial a local number that patches through. And he may refuse to have his photo taken, but he doesn't object to his followers' plastering the few available grainy shots on campaign posters and mosques around the country.

All that makes sense. Al-Sayid Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani is now indisputably the most powerful man in Iraq. The elections he demanded, on the terms he insisted upon, were an unexpected success; the party he crafted, and then blessed, has won a landslide victory. The United Iraqi Alliance, better known as the Shia List, racked up more than 65 percent of the votes counted as of last weekend. That's at least enough to choose the leaders of the new government, and when final results come in, it may come close to the two-thirds margin necessary to dictate the terms of Iraq's new constitution. "Ayatollah Sistani is very elated," says Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a member of the United Iraqi Alliance and national-security adviser to the interim government, who spoke to him by phone as results came in last week. snip

But the ayatollah also has insisted that Iraq's new constitution must be in line with Islamic principles, and recognize Islam as the nation's religion. Iraq's women are encouraged to vote as they want but, under Sistani's teachings, they won't be able to shake the hand of any man other than a father, brother or husband. (Sistani also forbids music for entertainment, dancing and playing chess.) "It's the Shiite equivalent of the Christian Coalition," says Cole. "The Christian Coalition doesn't want pastors to rule America, but it does want Christian ideals to govern policy."

more

[bpilgrim]

1. sounds like just the man the neoCONs want

running america... are we next? :scared:

though, who would be best to put in place if you wanted to calm things down in a Muslim nation... a CIA stooge (Iyad Allawi) or a CLERIC?



remember the wise decision to leave the CHRYSANTHEMUM THRONE - the longest unbroken monarchy on the planet - in place.


peace

[Massacure]

2. Didn't Sistani promise to throw the U.S. out if he won the election?

[bpilgrim]

6. so do the Japanese politicians

yokosuka, japan USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63)


it certainly would look good for everyone if the bulk of our troops came home ASAP, especially the neoCONs, since they still got a whole world yet to conquere...

believe you/me, i'm not ready to give the neoCONs that much credit but the thought does cross my ignorant mind.

peace

[Filimon]

3. put in place?

I don't think Sistani was 'put in place' by the US.

Time will tell what it all means to the future of Iraq.

[NNN0LHI]

5. Oh no? Who would be calling the shots in Iraq right now without the USA?

It sure wouldn't be an Iranian born Ayatollah my bucko.

Don

[mahina]

10. Ya, matey. Bub.

Avast. Ahoy.
Ahem.
I agree.

[Zynx]

12. This is ignorant

Sistani commands direct loyalty from the entire Shi'a population of Iraq. He doesn't need the US.

The idea that he is somehow a CIA stooge or something like that is asinine. That would make him probably the longest running, most complex cover stooge in history.

Get a grip.

[bpilgrim]

16. so is thinking deals can't be made in 3 years of negotiating...

though neither of us can know for sure now, it will be interesting to see how things play out.

Posted on Tue, Jan. 25, 2005

Top Iraqi candidates won't press U.S. troop withdrawal

By HANNAH ALLAM

Knight Ridder Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Politicians from the two leading tickets in Sunday's Iraqi elections backed away Tuesday from earlier campaign promises to set a deadline for the withdrawal of American forces.

...

The change is especially significant for the United Iraqi Alliance, favored by many to dominate the balloting. Until this week, its campaign materials listed its No. 2 promise as "setting a timetable for the withdrawal of multinational forces from Iraq."

But the alliance rewrote its campaign materials this week, revising its platform. The second item now reads: "The Iraq we want is capable of protecting its borders and security without depending on foreign forces."

The alliance, led by a prominent Shiite cleric and tacitly endorsed by the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's highest-ranking cleric, is expected to garner millions of votes.

source...
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/10731286.htm

the only thing new in this world is the history you don't know - truman

chill

peace

[NNN0LHI]

17. Think you are the one who needs to get a grip pal

I never suggested any such scenario as your imaginative little brain was capable of mustering. I just call this part of the penalty of breaking the law of unintended consequences. I was merely pointing out the ironic outcome from invading Iraq. More than 10,000 American casualties (so far), 300 billion dollars of US taxpayer dollars (so far), and for what? All to have an Iranian ayatollah deciding what goes on in Iraq? And I don't think that was the original plan to begin with either. Most Americans over 35 can remember a certain Iranian ayatollah making things pretty shitty for the USA not too long ago, so I can't imagine Bush and his minions can be thinking of making this ayatollah out to be a good guy. So thats as far as my thoughts on this ayatollah go. At least until I find out his bodyguards work for Blackwater Security. Then all bets will be off.

Don

[cliss]

20. Don,

I've been a regular contributing member of the DU for almost 2 years now. I usually post every day, because there's always something new on the DU. I always check the LBN, and often find a post by NNOLHI.

I for one appreciate all the work you do, and I know there are many others. I've learned SO much since I stumbled across this web site.

Thanks.

[daleo]

21. It's true. n/t

[Rockerdem]

4. Sistani wants his version of Islamic law. Goodbye, Sunnis

Civil war is in the offing. Just as the most rabid neocons and Israeli rightwingers wanted. Make Iraq a mess so it doesnt have time to threaten Tel Aviv.

[oasis]

7. I wonder if Walmart has a contract to market burkas for Iraqi women.

They're going to need millions more.

[Kimber Scott]

19. You can bet your W '04 buttons on it.

I know you don't have any, but I'm sure Sam Walton does.

[cliss]

8. This event points out so clearly

that the policymakers in Washington do not understand anything outside of themselves.

And the more radically different they are, the further they will fall from the US radar. And this is the key to the insurgency, also. Recall Usama Bin Laden. His tactic was to fight the US with the complete. He had a small band of cohorts, and they hid in caves in the Tora Bora mountains for a while.

Don Rumsfeld was very frustrated at the lack of "things to bomb". He said that "our bombs had turned everything to rubble, so there were no more targets". But they were not able to find him.

The US military is designed to fight armies or contingencies equal to istelf. By dispersing, fragmenting themselves into small units, they were able to 'pull a fast one' on the enormous, top-heavy US military.

In dealing with religions, the US finds itself in the same dilemma. Everything is assessed from its own perspective. George Bush only goes to church once a week (if that) and he can't understand the depths of the Iraqi Shias to their Ayatollah.

Bush's religion is an asset to him. He pulls it out whenever the going get rough, or if he needs to convince someone of his piousness. He would never dream of LIVING his religion.

So once again, the Fools in Washington will continue to be surprised and disappointed. Events in Iraq will continue to shock them. If they had bothered to check out the situation, they would have known that Al-Sistani was the true leader of Iraqis. As it turns out, they will now be "Helpers" in a country which is friendly toward Iran. Who could have guessed? Not them.

[bemildred]

9. Military force has never been of much use where religion is concerned.

Just ask the Romans. Not that it hasn't been tried over and over.

Now why did this happen? One indication is the assassination of the
Henri IV of France in 1610. He had tried to decouple nationalist
loyalty from religious affiliation, and his violent death was a sign
that tolerance between Catholic and Protestants was not a political
possibility. European monarchs picked sides in the name of religious
loyalty, and Europe was devastated by the dogmatic religious struggles
of the Thirty Years War. The bloodshed was appalling as religious
armies marched to and fro across the ‘gladiatorial ring’ of Germany
and Bohemia, essentially in an attempt to win the religious and
intellectual argument by force of arms, which of course proved
impossible. Toulmin argues that this brought about a ‘counter-
Renaissance’ — a demand for a new certainty in the face of these
appalling crises which neither humanistic skepticism nor religious
dogma seemed able to meet. Thus the quest for certainty, which led to
the philosophy of Descartes and mathematical kinds of ‘rational’
certainty and proof, should not be seen as a philosophical advance out
of its political context, but as ‘a timely response to a specific
historical challenge—the political, social and theological chaos
embodied in the Thirty Years War’ (1990:70)

Toulmin continues the story to the present time. Through the 18th and
19th centuries, as different sciences developed, a more pragmatic
attitude developed: each new discipline had to discover its own
methodology, and the hard edges of Enlightenment rationalism were
softened. But just as Europe was beginning to rediscover the values
of Renaissance humanism in the early 20th century, the roof fell in
with the First World War, the inequitable peace and the Great
Depression. Re-renaissance was deferred and there was another push
toward abstract certainty with the intellectual monopoly of logical
positivism, reflected in abstract art (Gablik, 1991) and Le Corbusier’s
proposition that a house is a machine for living in. It was not until
the 1960s that humanism could be re-invented and we could begin to
return to more practical philosophies. We are beginning to see that
‘Ignorance is not a solvable problem, it is an inescapable part of the
human condition’ (Orr, 1994:9).

Justice, Sustainability, and Participation(pdf)

[cliss]

11. Yipes....I left out a bunch of stuff in those sentences....

I meant to say;

"he can't understand the depth of Iraqi loyalty to their Ayatollah".

This is a sure sign of the rigidity and ossification in the military and probably the State Department as well. I suspect this has only gotten more pronounced over the past few years.

Problem: we have a government that doesn't function very well. It's turning in on itself, as LBN threads mention that "Gonzalez nay-sayers will be targeted, their families will be targets for the Neo-Cons.

The leaks are there......we can see them.....there's tons of corruption, probably 100% of all government contracts are crony-related....meaning that contracted stuff will be lower quality (notice all the threads about the helicopters "crashing" in Iraq.

Diagnosis: Green Light for the Insurgents, would-be terrorists, Al-Qaida who are looking for an opening. There's a chasm as big as the Grand Canyon.....

While they are fighting it out in Washington, "The Beast Bleeds", as Stan Goff writes.

[davhill]

14. In Times of Complete Civil Breakdown

As we are witnessing in Iraq, people always turn their most stable institutions, usually the religious ones.

[IronLionZion]

13. Future headline: President George P. Bush has decided to invade Iraq

because the Islamic fundamentalist nation has weapons of mass destruction and poses an immediate threat to our freedom. Operation Iraqi Liberation or OIL is likely to use nuclear weapons because we can not allow Iraq to use WMDs. :eyes:

/sarcasm

read my lips: no more Bushes in the white house


You know, the Iraqis have a right to elect whoever the hell they want. That's the democracy that we exported there. If it happens to be an extremist, then tough shit.

[bvar22]

15. Sistani may be a visionary...

...who can bring peace to this war ravaged land.

While the source is NOT credible (CorpoMedia MSNBC), the article has given me information on Sistani that I find reassuring and admirable.

[NNN0LHI]

18. "a visionary who can bring peace to this war ravaged land"

Don't get your hopes up. Thats exactly the kind of words our media used when they described Saddam Hussein during the Reagan/Bush administration. I swear.

Don