One of Ours

One year ago, the name Ali Sistani was forbidden in Iraqi newspapers. Today, a whisper from the grand ayatollah's house sends Western journalists scrambling, their Iraqi stringers ordered into action..English-speaking Iraqis cringe at the simplistic generalizations we see on Western television. The Sistani you see and the Sistani we see are, in many ways, two different people...
...Sistani has always been a peaceful spiritual figure...

...it would be a mistake to assume that all Iraqis — let alone all Shia — support the grand ayatollah, or see democracy as simplistically as he does. I represent a mixed Sunni-Shia area in Baghdad. My constituents understand that fair elections are impossible without safety and security...

... I'd guess that most of the crowds for hire, paid by some Shia political parties to rally around Sistani's beck and call, are also aware that elections are impossible at this juncture...

... I do not deny Sistani's religious importance; there is no doubt that religiously, the Shia are better organized. But such organization does not necessarily translate into a powerful voting block. Iraq has the most educated population of any Arab country: Iraqi Shia doctors, dentists, and engineers may be respectful to Sistani because of his age and learning, but would laugh at the idea that they should take political advice from a man who was born in Iran and hasn't been out of his house in decades...We also resent the implication — from so-called experts in the U.S. State Department and British Foreign Office — that the only "legitimate" Shia are those wearing turbans, just as we resent the view that "legitimate" Sunnis are those who set off bombs and explosives...

...Sunnis question the assumption that the Shia are the majority in Iraq. The Shia sparsely populate the south, while the Sunnis live in concentrated clusters...

...The United States has made many mistakes in Iraq, but they have given us freedom of speech. This frightens the Iranian mullahs, who fear that Sistani will muck around in Iranian politics, just as he now does in Iraq. The irony is that Sistani may even have a greater following in his home country, Iran, than in Iraq. These Iranian agents — from the Qods Force, Revolutionary Guards, and Iranian intelligence service — seek to muzzle Sistani, just as the Iranian regime has muzzled Grand Ayatollah Montazeri and dissident voices from Qom...

...By kowtowing to his beck and call, the Americans have bolstered Sistani's prestige. Sistani has tasted power and likes it. He will use his bully pulpit to voice Iraq's frustration. It would be a mistake, however, for America to overestimate Sistani: He is a barometer, nothing more. To treat Sistani with anything more than polite respect will only antagonize the vast majority of Iraqis — Sunnis and Shia alike — upon whom the new Iraq will be built.