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...Under the enlightened leadership of Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani, the Shi'ite majority has played the democracy game with gusto. It has acknowledged the importance of Kurdish and Sunni minority rights and seems unlikely to demand the constitutional imposition of strict Islamic law. Most important, it has resisted the temptation to retaliate against the outrageous violence of Sunni extremists, especially against Shi'ite mosques. Several Administration officials told me they hope that Hamas and Hizballah will respond similarly to the peaceful desires of their people, that they will emphasize stability, economic development and social services and avoid military posturing...
Nasrallah, 44, is used to being heard. Since assuming the group's leadership after Israel assassinated his predecessor, Sheik Abbas Musawi, in 1992, Nasrallah--a bearded, bespectacled Shi'ite cleric who trained in Najaf and Qum--has used Hizballah's resources to build a vast welfare network consisting of dozens of schools, 50 clinics and four hospitals as well as various businesses and farms that employ supporters...
Nasrallah, who is married and has four children, may find himself taking on an even bigger role. Though he rarely ventures out of Shi'ite strongholds--he usually limits his public addresses to well-guarded meetings marking religious occasions--he is respected by Lebanese politicians for ending Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon, a cause that cost him his eldest son, who died in 1997 battling Israeli forces. Some believe that Nasrallah could help bring Lebanon's bickering sides to the table. "Clear, decisive, conversational, principled and responsible," wrote Lebanese columnist Joseph Samaha on Nasrallah's call for a national...
...want assurances that the Kurdish-dominated north will retain the autonomy it has enjoyed since the end of the first Gulf War, when the U.S. established a no-fly zone to protect the Kurds, and that the new Iraqi constitution will not impose Islamic law, as some prominent Shi'ite clerics have demanded. But some Kurdish ambitions could trigger ethnic disputes that would reverberate beyond Iraq's borders. The Kurds' election success has emboldened those who want to expand the southern boundaries of Kurdistan to include Kirkuk, the oil-rich city that is home to Kurds, Arabs and Turkomans...
Since returning to Iraq after the U.S. invasion, al-Jaafari has worked to shore up his secularist credentials. "He may head a Shi'ite party, but he has never sounded like a Shi'ite politician," says Ammar Zain Alabideen, spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party, the leading Sunni political group. Dawa retains ties to the Iranian government, but al-Jaafari says that won't jaundice the way he views Washington. "The U.S. liberated Iraq from Saddam, and for that we will forever be grateful," he told TIME...