Word: ayatollahs
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...speed and level of chaos in Iraq is picking up fast. An apocalyptic cult came uncomfortably close to taking Najaf, one of Shi'a Islam's most holy cities, and murdering Grand Ayatollah Sistani. Sistani is the neo-cons' favorite quietist Shi'a cleric, the man who was supposed to keep Iraq's Shi'a in line while we went about nation building. And then, on Sunday, Iran's ambassador to Baghdad told the New York Times that Iran is in Iraq to stay, whether the Bush Administration likes...
...Just as consequential, for Sunnis and anyone else who knows Iraqi history, Saddam's executioners shouted the name of Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, Muqtada's father-in-law. Ayatollah Sadr, whom Saddam executed in 1980, is perhaps as responsible as Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini for modern, resurgent Shi'a Islam. Sadr founded the Da'wa Party, a violent, secretive organization committed to the creation of an Iraqi Shi'a Islamic republic - and today a political party that counts none other than Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as a member...
...ever going to take a poll, but it's safe to say that most Sunnis fear that Ayatollah Sadr's dream of an Iraqi Shi'a Islamic republic has already come true...
...detach Maliki from his key patron - Sadr, whose militia is in the thick of much of the sectarian violence - or else persuade Shi'ite rivals such as Abdulaziz al-Hakim to form a new coalition with the Sunnis and Kurds, excluding Maliki and Sadr, appear to be floundering. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the supreme Shi'ite spiritual leader whose expressed will neither Maliki nor Hakim can cross, has made clear that he will not tolerate any moves that break the unity of the ruling Shi'ite coalition that includes Maliki, Hakim and Sadr...
...also an enemy of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Iranian cleric who had fled the Shah's persecution and sought refuge in Iraq's holy Shi'a city of Najaf in 1965. Saddam did not make it a comfortable stay and Khomeini moved on to exile in Europe. When the Ayatollah became the supreme leader of Iran's Islamic revolutionary government in 1979, a clash was inevitable. In 1980, Saddam ordered the invasion of a southern province of Iran, sparking an eight-year war of attrition that ended in stalemate and the deaths of more than a million on both sides...