Have Iraqis
Voted for a Dictatorship by Ayatollah Ali Sistani?
By M. A.
Muqtedar Khan
Chair
Political Science Department
Adrian College
Non-Resident Fellow
Brookings Institution
The Bush administration is under
the false impression that the elections in Iraq
herald the era of democracy in Iraq and thus justify
the Bush preemption doctrine. What they cannot
see is that the US has just facilitated a major
transfer of power in the Arab World - from Sunnis
to Shiites. Thanks to the US the Arab Shites will
now control Baghdad - the jewel in the Islamic
crown - after a millennium. They did not rule
over Baghdad even under the glorious Fatimid Dynasty
(909-1171), a Shiite dynasty that ruled over Egypt,
North Africa and Syria nearly a thousand years
ago but had a tenuous hold briefly under the Buwayhid
tribal confederation from 945-1055 when the Turkic
Seljuks invaded and captured Baghdad with the
help of the Abbasids.
The Iraqi elections according to most analysts
are a triumph for the Bush administration’s
Iraq policy, since an estimated 60% of the potential
14 million voters voted on January 30, 2005. The
large turnout, in spite of escalated violence
by the insurgency which took hundreds of lives
in the run up and 44 lives on the day of the elections
itself, is being interpreted as indicative of
the Iraqi people’s desire for democracy
and free society. Though the elections were marred
by violence and a boycott by the Sunni minority,
the very fact of that a “free election”
was held in Iraq in more than half a century is
being touted as a significant step towards democracy.
First of all talking about “free”
elections in the context of Iraq is stretching
the truth, sort of like the claims that Iraq had
large stockpiles of WMDs and was on the verge
of attacking the US and Israel in 2001. Iraq is
currently under occupation of foreign powers that
have over 170,000 troops [150,000 US and other
Coalition forces] in the country. There is an
extremely violent and vigorous ongoing insurgency
in the country that puts a cloud on the free-ness
of the elections. The leadership of the Sunni
community who constituted about 20% of the population
had announced a boycott of the elections and the
extraordinarily low turnout in Sunni areas [due
to the boycott and the insurgency] clearly undermines
the legitimacy of this election. It is incorrect
to call this anything but a highly problematic
political exercise.
We must not forget that until Ayatollah Sistani
insisted on early nationwide elections, the US
was opposed to such an election and was determined
to form a government based on local community
representatives handpicked by the US. It was only
after the US agreed to a nationwide elections
to install a transitional government that will
write the new constitution did the Shiite community
cooperate with the occupation forces and the incipient
Shiite insurgency led primarily by Moqtada Sadr
in Najaf and other places fizzled out at the intervention
of Ayatollah Sistani who expedited his return
from Britain, on August 25, 2004, to placate the
growing anger in Iraqi Shiites.
Ayatollah Sistani is manipulating the US occupation
and the lack of a post-conquest plan at the Pentagon
to orchestrate a Shiite revolution. It is possible
that when the history of the world is rewritten,
Ali Sistani will be considered as the most Machiavellian
and the most astute political strategist ever.
Ayatollah Sistani has seen the future. A democratic
Iraq essentially will be a Shii Iraq run by his
surrogates who will win elections with his blessings,
will rule on his behalf as members of a democratic
government. In principle and on record Ayatollah
Sistani does not believe in theocracy, that is
rule by the clerics. However his entire conduct
since the US invasion of Iraq is clearly suggests
that he has no qualms about controlling, directing
and even manipulating politics from behind the
scenes.
Ayotollah Sistani and his clerical brigade will
not participate in the government as his friends
and colleagues do in Iran. They will delegate
the menial aspects of governance to the secular
elected leaders but the key elements such as writing
the constitution, developing the new legal codes,
determining the role of Islam in the polity [especially
which interpretations of Islam] and the philosophical
foundations of foreign policy, particularly relations
with the Arab world and with the West, will be
determined by the grand ayatollah and his coterie
of clerics.
The elections should not be read as indicative
of a desperate desire for democracy by Iraqis
who came out to vote. It should be seen as a manifestation
of power that Ali Sistani wields on the Shiite
population of Iraq. It was his decree that it
was a religious obligation of Shiite Muslims to
vote that is primarily responsible for the huge
turnout. The Shiites by and large recognize that
the US is presenting them with a historic opportunity
and if they exercised discipline, patience and
followed the Ayotallah, they would rule Iraq.
They will not only come to power but their principal
opponents will be quashed by the US itself. Najaf,
the holy center for Shiites will become like Mecca
under a Shiite ruled Iraq and another era of glory
would begin in the history of Shiite Islam.
While the Sunnis of Iraq are fighting a violent
Jihad against US occupation and opposing democratization
to prevent Shiite hegemony over Iraq, the Shiites
are engaged in their own silent Jihad. It is quite
possible that the US led invasion of Iraq has
replaced an overt and brutal dictatorship of Saddam
Hussein with a covert and subtle dictatorship
buy Marja-e-Taqleed [Role Model for emulation]
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani who is the highest-ranking
Shiite authority on the planet.
(Dr. Muqtedar Khan is a Non-resident Fellow at
the Brookings Institution. He is the author of
Jihad for Jerusalem (Praeger, 2004). His website
is www.ijtihad.org).
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