By Ghali Hassan
10 March, 2005 Countercurrents.org
In a recent opinion piece, Naom Chomsky writes, "In Iraq, the January elections were successful and praiseworthy. However, the main success is being reported only marginally: The United States was compelled to allow them to take place. That is a real triumph, not of the bomb-throwers, but of non-violent resistance by the people, secular as well as Islamist, for whom Grand Ayatollah Al Sistani is a symbol" (Khaleej Times Online, 4 March 2005). Mr. Chomsky is either completely out of touch with reality in Iraq, or simply ignorant of the legitimate rights of the Iraqi people to self-determination. <SNIP>
The new book by Ajami on Iraq, has a chapter on Sistani who he was able to interview via the help of Chalabi. http://www.cfr.org/publication/7657/ Ajami: Iraqi Elections 'Gave the Lie' to View That Democracy Is Alien to Middle East
Interviewer:
Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor
Interviewee:
Fouad Ajami, M. Khadduri Prof. of Middle Eastern Studies, Paul H.
Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins
University
>...For our part, we Americans overcame the fear of the Shiite
bogeyman that has paralyzed American policy ever since the Iranian
revolution of 1979. Ever since we made the acquaintance of radical
Shiism, we've been afraid of the Shiites, and we've held our politics
hostage to that fear. But we had to slay that dragon and set that
bogeyman aside. And we had to trust democracy in Iraq; we had to trust
the Shiites.
The United States was lucky to have Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf preaching the necessity of voting.
Yes. We were lucky. As a secularist, I'm not very happy with the idea that a Grand Ayatollah could decree, issue a fatwa, that voting is a religious obligation, because my worry about this is we could end up with another Grand Ayatollah who would decree that voting is impermissible. That's the risk we take. We took this risk in Iraq and we were lucky. We were lucky that the man at the helm of the clerical institution of the Shia of Najaf was a man of tremendous restraint, a man who represented the quietist tradition of Shiism. Now meanwhile across the street, so to speak, the Association of Muslim Scholars, which is the Sunni association, decreed that voting was impermissible. So, in fact, religion was brought into this election on the side of reason and moderation by Sistani, and then on the side of the insurgency, one way or another, by the Association of Muslim Scholars. A secularist cannot be happy with this, but we take it as it is.
Recent book on the Sh'ia, by Y. Nakash, http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/releases/m8127.html http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20030701faessay15402/yitzhak-nakash/the-shi-ites-and-the-future-of-iraq.html
Juan Cole on Sistani,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64131-2004Aug13?language=printer
>...Sistani believes that the Shiites made a strategic error in 1920
when they revolted against British colonial rule after World War I.
The British turned to the minority Sunnis for support, ensconcing them
in power for the rest of the century. Sistani believes that by showing
patience, the Shiite majority can come to power in Iraq through the
ballot box if it avoids alienating the Americans.