Sistani Ex Machina

August 27, 2004

The United States is making the same mistake with the scowly fatwa man, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, that it made on countless other occasions in Middle East history. Bereft of any understanding of fundamentalist Islamic culture, Washington is hoping that a cleric can carry America’s water in Iraq. He can’t and he won’t, and it will only open the door on a widening regional crisis.

Sistani, supposedly a “quietist”—which means he is supposed to stay the heck out of politics—is the least quiet one ever. After scuttling off to London (allegedly for heart treatment, but more likely to get out of the way of the U.S. assault that has virtually destroyed Najaf) he’s back. Just like his former (now dead) ally, Ayatollah Khoi, who was murdered within days of returning to Iraq last year as a British intelligence envoy, Sistani was ferried back to Iraq and then escorted to Najaf by the British.  According to Al Jazeera :

Al Sistani's convoy, swollen by thousands of faithful and accompanied by dozens of police and national guard patrol vehicles, was moving at no more than 20 km an hour on the 400 km journey north from Basra.

Two British occupation military helicopters hovered above Al Sistani's motorcade as it crawled along.

Sistani supposedly is doing all this as an independent force, but if you believe that, I have a mosque in Najaf to sell you. He is effectively an Anglo-American agent now, which is what he and his ilk have been since the 1990s. And in the case of England, they’ve been British stooges since the 1790s. But as always, they are unreliable pawns. The paradox of Sistani, the Catch-22, is that if he is able to deliver, then he will deliver an Iraq which will be gripped in the benighted stupidity of Islamic fundamentalism—not like Iran’s, but equally awful, and just as likely to engage in a jihad against nationalism and the left. But, if he is not able to deliver, than more militant Islamic forces will emerge to displace him, or kill him.