Let Iraqis rule themselves

Baghdad Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the senior religious figure of Iraq's Shiite majority and the community's most influential voice, has expressed "great unease" about the 10-week-old U.S. occupation and demanded that the U.S. allow Iraqis to rule themselves.

Sistani's statements, in written responses to questions from The Washington Post, represent a rare foray for the Iranian-born cleric into political affairs.

Sistani, viewed by U.S. officials as a crucial force for moderation in the turbulent postwar aftermath, stopped far short of demanding a withdrawal. But his words seemed to signal growing anxiety among the country's religious leadership over the direction of the occupation.

"We feel great unease over their goals, and we see that it is necessary that they should make room for Iraqis to rule themselves by themselves without foreign intervention," Sistani responded from his home in the southern city of Najaf.

A reclusive, scholarly figure in his 70s, Sistani has not been seen in public since before the U.S.-led invasion in March. His replies, conveyed on Saturday, were put in written form by his son and spokesman, Mohammed Rida Sistani, who acts on his father's authority.

Echoing other Shiite clerics, many of whom have become increasingly vocal in their denunciations of Western influence, Sistani also warned that the biggest threat facing the Arab country is "the obliteration of its cultural identity".

Despite Sistani's disavowal of any political role, U.S. officials, even as the war was underway, sought to open channels to the cleric, given his standing as the most respected among Iraq's senior ayatollahs in Najaf.

He has refused to meet with U.S. officials, but U.S. commanders said, in the wake of Najaf's fall, he issued a judgment urging Shiites not to interfere with American troops.

A copy of the edict was never published. But in a series of rulings - or fatwas - Sistani was credited with easing the transition from Saddam's government, and in contrast to the Sunni region in the northwest, Iraq's largely Shiite south has remained relatively quiet.

He ordered an end to looting that wrecked Baghdad and scarred other cities, demanded that stolen items be turned over to local authorities and forbade revenge killings against members of the Baath Party, whose rule was especially repressive in the south.

In a move welcomed by U.S. authorities, and in clear distinction with the Islamic government in neighbouring Iran, he instructed Iraq's clergy to remain outside of government.

That counsel was grounded in Sistani's theological view, a traditional line of thought that sees the clergy's calling as confined to spiritual affairs, not administrative. While other clerics in Iraq have spoken openly about political ambitions, Sistani has made clear that he seeks no role in a future government.

"Religious scholars should distance themselves from positions of administrative and executive responsibility," commented Sistani.

L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator of Iraq, has said that he has offered to meet Sistani, who declined the invitation. Like other U.S. officials, he acknowledged the ayatollah's importance. "I think his views will be valuable," he said on his return to Baghdad from a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Jordan.

Sistani, a slight man with a long white beard and thick black eyebrows who speaks Arabic with a Persian accent, is known as a marja al taqlid," a title held by a handful of the most senior ayatollahs.

To his followers, he has the right to interpret Islamic law in everyday life - in unprecedented and original fashion - giving him great sway. For them, his authority is traditionally unquestioned, and his modest office down a ramshackle alley in Najaf is besieged daily by followers seeking aid or answers to religious questions.

His statements about the U.S. occupation do not carry the weight of a fatwa, and only such an edict would be binding. But his remarks in the interview come at a time that some of his supporters in Najaf have complained about his reclusiveness, particularly as two other groups, with a distinctly more political agenda, are vying to capture the support of the country's majority.

"We wish he would talk more forcefully, but he would never accept," said Kamal Abdullah Bahr Ulum, a 62-year-old resident of Najaf and supporter of Sistani. "If he made a fatwa tomorrow to act, no one would remain in their home."

While Shiite clergy rarely speak positively about the U.S. occupation, at least in public and to their followers, most of the key actors are engaged with the American administration at some level.

Sistani's representative in Karbala, another holy Shiite city, is credited with helping facilitate in behind-the-scenes fashion an effective local government that has worked closely with the U.S. military to restore services and keep law and order.

The Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq, led by Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer Hakim, has taken part - with reservations - in U.S.-led discussions on an interim authority.

A group loyal to Muqtada Sadr, the son of a revered cleric assassinated in 1999 in Najaf, has long been seen as the most militant faction, but in recent weeks, it has markedly toned down its anti-U.S. pronouncements.

Beneath the surface, though, there remains great tumult, and competing factions are harsh in their denunciations of rivals as well as the U.S. On April 10 two clerics were hacked to death by a mob in Najaf in still-unclear circumstances.

At the shrine of Imam Ali, leaflets are posted on the walls from Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah, the Shiite militant guerrilla group based in Lebanon.

In them, he says, "We are observing what the Americans do in Iraq, not what they say.: In an edict from Ayatollah Kadhim Haeri, a senior Iraqi cleric based in Iran and the spiritual guide of Sadr's movement, he denounced the U.S. administration "as occupiers, not liberators."

The edict gave fodder to a rumour sweeping Baghdad and other cities that, in essence, accuses Zionists of carrying out a campaign to buy property in an attempt to facilitate an occupation of Iraq. "Spill the blood of any Jew who attempts from now on to own land or homes in Iraq," Haeri wrote.

Among the organised religious opposition, Sadr and Hakim's groups the most prominent, there is also a current of resentment over Bremer's plans to appoint an advisory council of 25 or 30 that will remain under his authority.

Groups including Hakim's, which enjoys a well-honed organisation that competes with Sadr's street-level popularity, fear the council is a way to circumvent their power.