On another front

There clearly is a serious political power struggle emerging in Iraq, with Shiite clerics squaring off against the US-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority and Iraqi Governing Council.

Basra, Iraq (AP, January 15) - Shouting "No to America!" tens of thousands of Shiite Muslims took to the streets yesterday to protest a U.S.-backed formula for choosing Iraq's new legislature.

The protest came as an aide to Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, warned he might issue a fatwa (religious edict), rejecting a U.S.-backed government if his demands for direct elections are ignored.

The turnout in Basra - Iraq's second-largest city - estimated by British soldiers at up to 30,000, was the biggest protest organized by Shiite clerics against the power transfer plan.

Under the current plan, the United States will transfer power by July 1 to a provisional Iraqi government to be created by a legislature chosen by provincial caucuses. The plan envisions a two-year political transition before full elections in 2005. ...

"If Bremer rejects the opinion of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, then he will issue a fatwa to deprive the elected council of its legitimacy," Mohammed Baqir al-Mehri, al-Sistani's Kuwait representative told Abu Dhabi television.

It's safe to say that any such ruling would accomplish exactly the stated end among millions of Shiite Iraqis.

It's hard to say exactly what's going on here, particularly how literally Sistani's demand for immediate general elections should be taken. That is, is he inflexible on this based on principle, or is this more of a negotiating stance, trying to press what he sees as an advantage based in the idea that the US has become trapped in its own timetable? Is this merely intended to head off the prospect of special status for such as the Kurds, or does he envision the Shiite majority producing a strict Islamic state, indeed a strict Shiite Islamic state?

I don't know. What I do know is that of late he has become firmer in his call for direct elections and that I find it interesting that this has arisen in the wake of Kurds demanding, even expecting, some kind of continued sovereignty over the Kurdish-majority north. And I also know that neither Sistani nor the Kurds are in a mood to back down on that point.