Word: diplomat
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...Iraqi constitution. But the biggest danger may be that a low Sunni turnout would undermine the legitimacy of any new government and dash prospects of a quick postelection pacification of the resistance. "If the Sunnis don't feel they have a stake in the national government," warns a Western diplomat, "they will be a constant source of friction within the political system." Failure to secure Sunni participation in the new government could drive more Sunnis into the arms of the insurgents, delaying a peaceful pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq. "If the Sunnis are not a big part...
DIED. PAUL NITZE, 97, formidable diplomat and negotiator who was one of the principal architects of America's cold war policies toward the Soviet Union; in Washington. Erudite, brash and sometimes irritable, he worked for Presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan, helping to instigate the postwar Marshall Plan and, in 1950, writing a key paper that urged a U.S. economic and military buildup to "frustrate the Kremlin design of a world dominated by its will." Yet this early cold warrior became better known for his later efforts at conciliation, most notably a famous "walk in the woods" near...
...made it clear that foreign powers cannot be allowed to dictate the country's form of government, nor does he want to replicate a Western model. He has said Islamic law should govern family and personal matters. "His vision of the good state," says a Western diplomat in Baghdad, "is not where my wife and daughter would want to live." But Sistani's aides say he considers the Khomeini and Taliban experiments in theocracy failures--too extreme and rigid for modern society, especially one as demographically diverse as Iraq. And he opposes al-Sadr in large measure because the upstart...
...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...
...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. --With reporting by the Iraqi staff of TIME/Najaf, Massimo...