Iraq's Shadow Ruler

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Despite Washington's unspoken dependence on Sistani to keep disaffected Shi'ites in check, U.S. officials read dark omens in his increasing activism. They don't want to set a precedent in which the grand ayatullah always has the final say. And the specter of Khomeini deeply colors the Bush Administration's view. Officials are wary that Sistani's long-term interests are not aligned with the U.S.'s. Some fear that he wants to become the political puppetmaster, running a religious regime behind the veil of a titular secular leader. Others distrust his Iranian background and connections and are worried that he would take instructions from the mullahs next door. Sistani and his supporters may not want a strict Islamic republic, but if they win, says Kenneth Katzman at Washington's Congressional Research Service, "they're going to have very, very close ties to Tehran." But Iranian authorities say Sistani has well-established financial and philosophical independence from Tehran.

Those who know Sistani say fears of outside influence are misplaced.

They describe a devout but independent cleric whose religious calling requires him to rise above both the intrigues of day-to-day politics and the pursuit of personal political power. "The Islamic view," says Dhafer al-Qaisey, a Sistani representative in southern Baghdad, "is that a religious leader must take responsibility to say what is right and what is not. Then it is up to you whether to follow that advice."

Despite the stream of politicos knocking on his door to seek his blessing, Sistani has said he will not anoint any person or party. He even refuses to allow visitors to be photographed with him, for fear they might turn pictures into propaganda.

His overriding motive, intimates say, is to seize this moment in history to ensure that Shi'ite hopes are not dashed yet again. For centuries, the sect has ended up on the wrong side of power, and Sistani wants to make sure it comes out on top this time. He has been adamant about elections because he believes Shi'ites can get what they want at the ballot box, and the rest of the world will have to accept it. Some Sistani aides say there is an implicit warning in that: if Shi'ite expectations of electoral victory are thwarted, Sistani could call his followers to rebel. "He does not think of jihad now," says Ali al-Mousawi al-Waath, Sistani's agent in the Baghdad shrine district of Khadimiya, "but that depends on what the Americans do." Iraq's Shi'ites, he says, "follow our marja. If he tells us to die, we die."

No one thinks Sistani is close to giving such an order. He is too "humane," says Shahristani. When al-Sadr's soldiers disobeyed Sistani's directive not to spill blood in Najaf, Sistani "wept for hours" over the young Iraqi lives that were lost, says an intimate. A diplomat in Baghdad regards Sistani as a "cautious man who doesn't go out on a limb." Sistani's men say he has repeatedly doused al-Sadr's uprisings because he fears violence will only cost the Shi'ites their legitimate claim to power.

But his aides say he is growing increasingly worried that the U.S. is manipulating the electoral process to limit Shi'ite influence. White House and State Department officials are concerned that in a completely open election, Shi'ites might emerge with an enormous majority that would dangerously shunt Sunnis and Kurds aside. The National Security Council's Iraq point man, Robert Blackwill, came up with the idea of uniting members of the former and current interim governments, made up largely of exiles chosen for their ethnic balance and pro-American attitudes, into a single slate. That would give Washington's favored candidates, who have well-organized political operations but are not individually popular, a way to stay in power. Blackwill, says a well-placed U.S. official, "created the idea to counter Sistani's power." Blackwill's office claims that while he was developing the plan, some Iraqis hit on the same idea "independently." But the ayatullah has indicated he disapproves of the unified slate. "He's afraid the way the voting is being set up, the Shi'ites might be cheated out of their majority," says Michigan's Cole. The system has also encouraged the curious alliance of the religious al-Sadr and the secular Ahmad Chalabi, former U.S. favorite, who see in each other a way to trump Sistani's power. The ayatullah is agitating for changes that would give Islamic parties aligned with him a higher profile. While the cleric has not tried to negotiate the specifics, observers say that is as far into the grit of politics as he has ventured. He has to show Shi'ites that the election can benefit them, says Katzman. If it doesn't, he risks a damaging loss of legitimacy among ordinary Shi'ites that demagogues like al-Sadr will try to exploit.

The last thing Washington wants is to help someone like al-Sadr rise to power. "Sistani's the most moderate ayatullah in sight," says a Western diplomat in Baghdad, "and the U.S. needs to see eye to eye with him on basic political steps." That means the Bush Administration may have to accept that the version of democracy it went to war to create in Iraq may not be the one it gets. To achieve a stable, free Iraq, there's no going around the power—and preferences—of Grand Ayatullah Sistani.