Word: sistani
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...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...
...critical issue, of course, is how Islamic Sistani wants Iraq to be. He has 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...
...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...
...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...
...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...