Ayatullah Sistiani says No Way! And the US scrambles...

Greetings,

This is an interesting article on the role of Shiism in the global arena. Hope you enjoy it.

kind

seyedjavad

From: "Leo Tolstoy"

To: seyedjavad@hotmail.com

Subject: Fwd: Ayatullah Sistiani says No Way! And the US scrambles...

Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 22:11:55 +0000

>From: "Altaf Bhimji"

>Reply-To: ISJ

>To: altaf@people-link.net, ISJ

>Subject: Ayatullah Sistiani says No Way! And the US scrambles...

>Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 11:09:06 -0800

>Sistani's Fatwa trumped Bremer

>Rajiv Chandrasekharan has a wonderful article in the Washington Post

>on the way Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani's fatwa of June 28 stymied US

>civil administrator Paul Bremer. .(See below)

>This was the substance ofremarks on Nightline on Monday night, as

>well.

>Sistani insisted that drafters of a new Iraqi constitution be

>elected. Bremer wanted to appoint them. Bremer apparently thought

>right up through October that some way could be found to get around

>Sistani's ruling. One idea he had was to have other, more pliant

>pro-

>US clerics come out with a competing ruling. Another was to send

>them

>to Sistani to try to convince him to change his mind.

>Just so the CPA knows, here is how Shiite Islam of the Usuli school

>(which predominates in Iraq) works. Ideally, every Shiite should

>follow the most learned and the most upright jurisprudent in his

>rulings on how Islam is to be practiced. He rules only on subsidiary

>matters about which the laity might have some questions, not about

>fundamentals like the 5 daily prayers. Typically the most respected

>and most learned of the ayatollahs at Najaf is considered the marja`

>al-taqlid or "Object of Emulation." Laypeople without a seminary

>training must obey his rulings implicitly. The laity also get some

>say about which Object of Emulation they want to follow (in this

>respect Shiism is less like Catholicism than like the Baptists,

>where

>congregations hire their preacher. But it is more like Catholicism

>in

>having a hierarchy.)

>The system has become quite hierarchical. At the lowest level, a

>seminary graduate is a mujtahid or jurisprudent, able to derive the

>law from the sacred texts with the tools of juridical reasoning he

>learns at seminary. Muqtada al-Sadr is said to be on the verge of

>attaining this level. Mere mujtahids in theory really can only

>interpret the law for themselves. The next rank is Hujjatu'l-Islam

>or

>Proof of Islam. The next highest rank is Ayatollah. Then the really

>senior ayatollahs are Grand Ayatollahs.

>Sistani is a Grand Ayatollah. Someone like Muhammad Bahr al-Ulum,

>who

>serves on the Interim Governing Council, is much junior to him. He

>is

>just an ayatollah or maybe even a Hujjatu'l-Islam. Typically the

>clerics with large followings are Grand Ayatollahs, and they are

>Objects of Emulation.

>Anyway, Bremer's hope that he could have people like Bahr al-Ulum

>overrule Sistani would be like hoping a bishop could overrule the

>Pope. Even 5 bishops could not. And then Bremer's hope that he could

>put pressure on Sistani to change his mind was also in vain. A

>jurisprudent is bound by his juridical reasoning as long as he

>doesn't see new evidence or come up with a new argument. It would be

>seen as completely corrupt to change a ruling merely on pragmatic

>grounds, and at the behest of the Americans or of more junior

>jurists! A Grand Ayatollah gives, rather than taking, marching

>orders.

>--------------------

>How Cleric Trumped U.S. Plan for Iraq

>Ayatollah's Call for Vote Forced Occupation Leader to Rewrite

>Transition Strategy

>By Rajiv Chandrasekaran

>Washington Post Foreign Service

>Wednesday, November 26, 2003; Page A01

>BAGHDAD, Nov. 25 -- The unraveling of the Bush administration's

>script for political transition in Iraq began with a fatwa.

>The religious edict, handed down in June by Grand Ayatollah Ali

>Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shiite Muslim cleric, called for

>general elections to select the drafters of a new constitution. He

>dismissed U.S. plans to appoint the authors as "fundamentally

>unacceptable."

>His pronouncement, underestimated at first by the Bush

>administration, doomed an elaborate transition plan crafted by U.S.

>administrator L. Paul Bremer that would have kept Iraq under

>occupation until a constitution was written, according to American

>and Iraqi officials involved in the process. While Bremer feared

>that

>electing a constitutional assembly would take too long and be too

>disruptive, there was a strong desire on his own handpicked

>Governing

>Council to obey Sistani's order.

>With no way to get around the fatwa, and with escalating American

>casualties creating pressure on President Bush for an earlier end to

>the occupation, Bremer recently dumped his original plan in favor of

>an arrangement that would bestow sovereignty on a provisional

>government before a constitution is drafted.

>Bremer's unwillingness to heed the fatwa until just a few weeks ago

>may have delayed the country's political transition and exacerbated

>popular anger at the occupation, Iraqi political leaders said.

>"We waited four months, thanks to Bremer," said one council member,

>speaking on condition of anonymity. "We could have organized this

>[transition] by now had we started when Sistani issued his fatwa.

>But

>the Americans were in denial."

>People familiar with the discussions among U.S. officials about the

>fatwa said American political officers were too isolated to grasp

>the

>power of the edict right away, assuming that secular former exiles

>backed by the U.S. government would push Bremer's plan. Even when

>Sistani's clout became clear, they said Bremer remained reluctant to

>rework his transition plan right away. "He didn't want a Shiite

>cleric dictating the terms of Iraq's political future," one U.S.

>official with knowledge of the process said.

>U.S. officials said it took months even for Iraqis to grasp the

>influence of Sistani's fatwa. Bremer's deputies also hoped the edict

>could be countered by statements from other Shiite clerics

>supporting

>approaches other than general elections, but few of those

>materialized.

>"What we thought was necessary was for there to be a broad

>consultation to find out what the Iraqi public wanted," said one

>official involved in the political transition. "In hindsight,"

>another official added, "we should have done it differently."

>Who Would Draft Constitution?

>Sistani is a frail man with a black turban, a snowy beard and

>unquestioned clout among Iraq's Shiite majority. Born in Iran but

>schooled in Iraq, he lives in the holy city of Najaf, about 90 miles

>south of Baghdad. Although he works out of a modest office on a

>decrepit alley, he has enormous authority to interpret Islamic law

>in

>everyday life.

>During the years former president Saddam Hussein was in power --

>when

>the government deemed activist Shiite clerics subversive and ordered

>many of them killed -- Sistani remained largely secluded from

>politics. Even after Hussein's government was toppled in April,

>Sistani shied away from political pronouncements and public

>appearances.

>At the end of June, when Arab satellite television networks

>erroneously reported that Iraq's constitution would be written by

>American and British experts, Sistani broke his silence. In a two-

>page fatwa issued on June 28, he declared that he would only support

>a constitution written by Iraqis chosen through a general election,

>not by a council selected by the Americans.

>The fatwa declared: "There is no guarantee that the council would

>create a constitution conforming with the greater interests of the

>Iraqi people and expressing the national identity, whose basis is

>Islam, and its noble social values."

>In Baghdad, Sistani's pronouncement did not raise immediate alarm

>among U.S. officials. Bremer's aides assumed the fatwa would be

>revised or rescinded once they told Sistani how difficult it would

>be

>to hold elections right away. There were no voter rolls, constituent

>boundaries or electoral laws. "There is simply no way to conduct

>national elections today," Bremer said at the time.

> Bremer also feared that elections would create too much

>uncertainty.

>The Bush administration wanted an orderly process it could control,

>including a constitution that would be a model for its efforts to

>democratize the Arab world, enshrine individual rights, and

>establish

>a secular government, religious freedom and equality of the sexes.

>Bremer believed that holding a vote before political parties had

>time

>to establish themselves would result in Baathists and Islamic

>extremists, the two best-organized forces in the country, dominating

>the outcome.

>Speaking to reporters a few days after the fatwa was issued, Bremer

>expressed confidence that he would be able to implement "a process

>that produces a constitution that meets the general concerns that I

>understand Ayatollah Sistani mentioned."

>Bremer was vague about how the authors would be selected. At the

>time, his aides privately said Iraqi political leaders and Americans

>would select the writers. But he pledged that the document was "not

>going to be written by the United States. It's not going to be

>written by the British. It's not going to be written by the U.N.

>It's

>going to be written by Iraqi people."

>Overtures to the Ayatollah

>Hoping to change Sistani's mind, political officers with the

>occupation authority sought a meeting. But every overture was met

>with a polite rebuff. "He didn't want it to look like he was

>cooperating with the Americans," said Mowaffak Rubaie, a member of

>the Governing Council who is close to Sistani.

>By early July, Bremer had shifted focus to formation of the council,

>a 25-member body composed of American allies and political

>neophytes.

>In last-minute negotiations before the council was named, the

>prospective members demanded more authority for a variety of issues,

>including the drafting of a constitution. As a compromise, Bremer

>offered to let them form a commission that would identify the best

>way to select the drafters.

>Soon after the council was formed, Bremer asked leaders of the

>country's largest Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic

>Revolution in Iraq, to meet with Sistani to see if a compromise

>could

>be reached on the constitution, said Adel Abdel-Mehdi, director of

>the party's political bureau. He said the party's leader at the

>time,

>Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir Hakim, who was killed in an August car

>bombing in Najaf, talked to Sistani about backing away from the

>fatwa.

>"We told Bremer there was no hope for compromise," Abdel-Mehdi said.

>"Ayatollah Sistani was firm in his position."

>Bremer's Power Challenged

>Upon hearing back from Abdel-Mehdi and other intermediaries, Bremer

>and his aides figured there was still a way to reach a compromise.

>They talked about recruiting other ayatollahs, such as Hakim, to

>issue statements warning about the dangers of immediate elections,

>U.S. officials familiar with the process said. And they sought to

>hammer out a middle-ground solution with Governing Council members,

>the officials said.

>"There was still a lot of confidence we would find a way around the

>fatwa," one U.S. official said.

>By August, after lengthy discussions, American political officers

>and

>several council members settled on the idea of a "partial election."

>Instead of allowing anyone to stand as a candidate and having to

>compile voter rolls for general elections, the occupation authority

>would organize caucuses in each governorate, or province, that would

>be limited to political, religious, tribal, academic and trade union

>leaders as well as other influential local figures approved by the

>Americans. The caucus would select the drafters of the constitution.

>Although holding caucuses would take longer than directly appointing

>the authors, Bremer accepted the idea, as did several influential

>members of the Governing Council. "It was the ideal compromise,"

>said

>council member Samir Shakir Mahmoud Sumaidy. "The process would be

>more democratic, but it would avoid the problems of a general

>election."

>Despite their confidence, they had no idea what Sistani thought of

>the plan. The ayatollah remained silent.

>In mid-August, the Governing Council selected a 25-member

>constitutional commission that began discussing ways to choose the

>drafters. Composed of lawyers, judges and academics, the commission

>held meetings with influential figures around the country, including

>Sistani.

>What they heard in their meetings was strong support for general

>elections, several commission members recalled. In their

>conversation

>with Sistani, the commission did not even broach the idea of partial

>elections, said law professor Hikmat Hakim, one of the commission

>members.

> "We told him his fatwa would be respected," Hakim said. "We didn't

>ask him about the partial elections."

>On Sept. 8, the commission voted 24 to 0 to endorse general

>elections. "It was very difficult, if not impossible, to disregard

>the fatwa of Ayatollah Sistani," said Yass Khudier, another

>commission member.

>Concerned that a unanimous endorsement of general elections would

>interfere with Bremer's timetable to wind up the occupation by the

>end of 2004, U.S. officials grew impatient and urged the council to

>press the commission for a compromise. "We told them to come up with

>other ideas," one council member said. "We told them to consider

>partial elections."

>When the commission submitted its final report to the council on

>Sept. 30, it failed to resolve the impasse. The panel suggested the

>same three approaches that everyone had been talking about -- direct

>appointment, partial elections and general elections -- without

>choosing one of them.

>As the report was being completed, Secretary of State Colin L.

>Powell

>sought to push the council to endorse partial elections, saying

>Iraqis should be given a six-month deadline to complete their

>constitution. Members bristled. "It was an unreasonable demand,"

>said

>Dara Noureddine, the council's liaison with the commission. "We

>needed time to achieve consensus."

>But consensus was elusive. The council had split into two factions.

>Sunni Arabs, Sunni Kurds and some moderate Shiites, such as Ahmed

>Chalabi, favored the partial elections. Other traditionalist Shiite

>groups, among them the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution

>and

>the Dawa party, cited Sistani's fatwa as a mandate and insisted on

>general elections.

>"We felt elections were the only legitimate way to proceed," the

>Supreme Council's Abdel-Mehdi said. His party and several other

>Shiite council members told Bremer that they would not be able reach

>a consensus on partial elections.

>Bremer refused to give up. He chafed at the idea that a cleric would

>be able to dictate Iraq's democratic transition. "Is the political

>structure of Iraq going to be in the hands of one man?" Bremer said

>to a group of visitors in October.

>He urged the council's five traditionalist Shiites to try to

>persuade

>Sistani to support partial elections, said Rubaie, one of the five.

>Rubaie said he met with Sistani in October and explained the

>problems

>with general elections and the benefits of partial elections.

>Sistani

>was unmoved, Rubaie said. "He would not have it."

>Shortly thereafter, Sistani delivered his first public

>pronouncements

>on partial elections. In written comments provided to The Washington

>Post, he said there could be "no substitute" for a general election.

>Fatwas from other clerics in support of partial elections never

>materialized. Nobody wanted to take on Sistani.

>Occupation Chief Yields

>Shiite political leaders insisted an election could be organized in

>less than six months using food-ration rolls as a voter registry.

>But

>Bremer and his aides dismissed that, insisting an election could not

>be pulled off in less than two years.

>But as U.S. military casualties escalated, Bremer and other Bush

>administration officials realized their plan would have to be

>rewritten. "Once it became clear we couldn't get around the

>election,

>we knew we had to do something else," one American involved in the

>process said.

>On Nov. 9, Bremer called national security adviser Condoleezza Rice,

>who was at FedEx Field for a Washington Redskins game. With no

>viable

>way to draft a quick constitution, both agreed a major change was

>needed, according to officials familiar with the talks.

> "We told him his fatwa would be respected," Hakim said. "We didn't

>ask him about the partial elections."

>On Sept. 8, the commission voted 24 to 0 to endorse general

>elections. "It was very difficult, if not impossible, to disregard

>the fatwa of Ayatollah Sistani," said Yass Khudier, another

>commission member.

>Concerned that a unanimous endorsement of general elections would

>interfere with Bremer's timetable to wind up the occupation by the

>end of 2004, U.S. officials grew impatient and urged the council to

>press the commission for a compromise. "We told them to come up with

>other ideas," one council member said. "We told them to consider

>partial elections."

>When the commission submitted its final report to the council on

>Sept. 30, it failed to resolve the impasse. The panel suggested the

>same three approaches that everyone had been talking about -- direct

>appointment, partial elections and general elections -- without

>choosing one of them.

>As the report was being completed, Secretary of State Colin L.

>Powell

>sought to push the council to endorse partial elections, saying

>Iraqis should be given a six-month deadline to complete their

>constitution. Members bristled. "It was an unreasonable demand,"

>said

>Dara Noureddine, the council's liaison with the commission. "We

>needed time to achieve consensus."

>But consensus was elusive. The council had split into two factions.

>Sunni Arabs, Sunni Kurds and some moderate Shiites, such as Ahmed

>Chalabi, favored the partial elections. Other traditionalist Shiite

>groups, among them the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution

>and

>the Dawa party, cited Sistani's fatwa as a mandate and insisted on

>general elections.

>"We felt elections were the only legitimate way to proceed," the

>Supreme Council's Abdel-Mehdi said. His party and several other

>Shiite council members told Bremer that they would not be able reach

>a consensus on partial elections.

>Bremer refused to give up. He chafed at the idea that a cleric would

>be able to dictate Iraq's democratic transition. "Is the political

>structure of Iraq going to be in the hands of one man?" Bremer said

>to a group of visitors in October.

>He urged the council's five traditionalist Shiites to try to

>persuade

>Sistani to support partial elections, said Rubaie, one of the five.

>Rubaie said he met with Sistani in October and explained the

>problems

>with general elections and the benefits of partial elections.

>Sistani

>was unmoved, Rubaie said. "He would not have it."

>Shortly thereafter, Sistani delivered his first public

>pronouncements

>on partial elections. In written comments provided to The Washington

>Post, he said there could be "no substitute" for a general election.

>Fatwas from other clerics in support of partial elections never

>materialized. Nobody wanted to take on Sistani.

>Occupation Chief Yields

>Shiite political leaders insisted an election could be organized in

>less than six months using food-ration rolls as a voter registry.

>But

>Bremer and his aides dismissed that, insisting an election could not

>be pulled off in less than two years.

>But as U.S. military casualties escalated, Bremer and other Bush

>administration officials realized their plan would have to be

>rewritten. "Once it became clear we couldn't get around the

>election,

>we knew we had to do something else," one American involved in the

>process said.

>On Nov. 9, Bremer called national security adviser Condoleezza Rice,

>who was at FedEx Field for a Washington Redskins game. With no

>viable

>way to draft a quick constitution, both agreed a major change was

>needed, according to officials familiar with the talks.

>----------------------------------------------------------------------

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