If any person commands the support and dedication of a majority of the Iraqi people, it is this great man…
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And with a grand ayatollah calling for universal suffrage, “the United States is in a strange position, where Sistani is on the side of democracy and the United States is not,”
Interestign article, I think there need to be popular elections in Iraq or real democracy. I guess this would shut those ppl who claim democracy and islam are nto compatible because this gentlemen may know more about religion then some loudmouths we run into here :)
Re: Grand Ayatollah Sistani’s challenge to the US for true democracy in Iraq
Does Algeria reminds you of something. Democracy in Iraq means Shieas will run the show and most likely will be chums with Iran. Naaa!!! there are quite a few versions of democracies lets see which fits Iraq. I think US must arrest him coz he is a bearded mullah and a terrorist that is IF US has balls. Sunnis are bad enough shias and sunnis united will be a lot more then US can handle.
Yes, it would, I think those sort of people would call the Grand Ayotollah various names, just as some on the other side will consider him a fanatic for his religious standing.
But as I have long argued on these boards the Shia Muslim majority of Iraq particularly have always been deprived of political power be it be by the Ottomans, the British, the British-installed royals and finally Saddam’s Baathists, in favour of a minority within the Sunni Muslim and Christian communities. Now for the first time in over seven hundred years the Shia Muslims of Iraq are poised for power, and Grand Ayotollah Sistani has argued for this to be true representative power, which commands the democractic will of all the Iraqi people, rather than those appointed by foreign powers.
Ayatollah Sistani also makes it clear that he rejects any talk of “Shia-power” alone and those who want to promote division among the sectarian and ethnic groupings of Iraq.
Malik73..i am assumign some peopel would wonder whether he is muslim or not as his acceptance of democracy as a viable governign system are at odds with their ideas :)
I can just imagine the type of discord Mr. Sistani's words has caused in various groups..they are probably back at the drawing board to figure out a better argument. especially those who claim that democracy is unislamic..what do u think they will do..claim him as an agent of the west now?..and it poses probs for ppl who were looking to plant some regime of choice there too..
Interesting turn of events.
here khilafah khilafah khilafah...here khilafah khilafah khilafah
they are scared of this thread ;)
lol.. laffs with fraudia
hell there has been democracy in iran for 24 years..
so who there is no doubt that democracy is compatible with islamic form of government.
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Originally posted by blackzero: *
lol.. *laffs with fraudia
hell there has been democracy in iran for 24 years..
so who there is no doubt that democracy is compatible with islamic form of government.
[/QUOTE]
Very true.
Let's not forget that the Grand Ayatollah Sistani is as religious/Islamic as they come, and he is arguing for more widespread democracy than anyone secular or khilafist in the case of Iraq.
Now Grand Ayatollah Sistani has come out with an unprecedented warning for the American’s.
**Iraq Cleric Warns of More Violence if Poll Not Held **
Iraq’s most senior Shi’ite Muslim cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, warned on Sunday of increased political tensions and violence if elections are not held within months. Sistani dented Washington’s hopes of winning his backing for its plan to hand over power to Iraqis, as fresh violence erupted in three Iraqi cities and towns. No casualties were reported in the violence that ranged from a bombing to stone-throwing.
Officials from the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council went to the Shi’ite city of Najaf to meet Sistani to try to persuade him to back Washington’s plan. Shi’ites make up the majority of Iraq’s population. Sistani wants a transitional assembly due to come into being in mid-year to be directly elected, and refused to back down after meeting the Governing Council officials. If he does not support the U.S. plan, many Shi’ites may refuse to accept the process. Shi’ites were repressed during three decades of iron rule by Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Muslim. “The ideal mechanism for this is elections which a number of experts confirm can be held within coming months with an acceptable degree of credibility and transparency,” Sistani’s office quoted him as telling the Governing Council delegation. “If the transitional assembly is formed by a mechanism that doesn’t have the necessary legitimacy, it wouldn’t be possible for the government to perform a useful function… New problems will arise as a result of this that will only worsen the tensions in the political and security situation.”
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Fraudz: *
here khilafah khilafah khilafah...here khilafah khilafah khilafah
they are scared of this thread ;)
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Hahahahahhahahahaha...
Fraudz, your opinion please.....
If democracy does come into Iraq, what do you think the power blocks would be like.......
When Sistani speaks, Bush listens.
When Ho Chi Minh spoke you never listened, when Kim Song-Il spoke you never listened… And we all know what happened… You have learned to behave with Little Kim Jr. you better do the same with Good old Sistani or line up for his wrath.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FA17Ak02.html
When Sistani speaks, Bush listens
By Ehsan Ahrari
Who is the most powerful man in Iraq today? Not L Paul Bremer, the US viceroy of Iraq, not even Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of the coalition forces. It is that quiet Shi’ite cleric who is seldom seen in public, and who does not grant any interviews, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani. He communicates with his followers through written edicts (fatwas), and everyone, including the US president, listens.
In the initial days after the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime, he instructed his followers to abstain from opposing the occupation forces. His unspoken rationale was generally interpreted as favoring the US presence. Wrong. He was as much opposed to the US occupation of his adopted country as he was to the rule of Saddam Hussein. Except that in the case of the Americans, he gave them benefit of the doubt, hoping that their presence would lead to the emergence of a stable Iraq, especially since the Americans were hell-bent on eradicating all remnants of Saddam’s rule.
Sistani believes in the separation of religion and politics; however, the junk-food version of instant experts on Iraq inside the United States and those who are part of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) were quick to confuse his version of that separation with the Western notion of separation of church and state - which underscores the biblical notion of “render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s”.
Fact of the matter is that politics is never really separate from religion in a Muslim country. Turkey, a self-proclaimed secular state, has proved constantly that Islam has never been absent from the chambers of power throughout the existence of the modern Turkish state. That is even more true for Iraq and Iran, where Shi’ite Islam is the dominant sect. The least understood aspect of the doctrine of quietism of Shi’ite Islam is that even when the clerics are silently protesting the injustices of an existing political order, they are not exactly totally separating themselves from politics.
Sistani always knew what he wanted: the establishment of a Shi’ite-dominated moderate Islamic democracy. He envisaged the US presence as a guarantor of that eventuality. More to the point, the Americans were to safeguard the Shi’ites’ right to be the dominant group, and were to protect them from the re-emergence of another form of Sunni-dominated tyranny at the end of Saddam’s tyranny.
Even though he has been in Iraq for several months now, Bremer could never fathom the nuances of Sistani’s thinking. Viceroys in colonies don’t mingle too much with the locals. They only learn the “truth” from the chosen sycophants who tell them what they want to hear. This is so true for Iraq, where the Iraqis have been old practitioners of never speaking the truth to the powerful ones at a given time. To them, the Americans only represent the current fleeting phase of such rulers.
For Sistani, direct elections in the short run guarantee the emergence of a Shi’ite-dominated order. For Bremer, indirect elections guarantee prolongation of US control on the political future of Iraq. These two visions are not contradictory, but they are not complementary either. So Sistani made clear what he wanted last June. Bremer attempted to change his mind, and he might have been misled by the intermediaries who were talking to him and the grand ayatollah. Sistani refused to grant audience to the foreign viceroy, thereby creating even a semblance of endorsing the US occupation.
Now, since the security situation in Iraq seems to be somewhat calming down and the Americans are pushing more toward indirect elections, Sistani spoke with considerable vigor: the Iraqi provisional assembly due to select a government in June must be elected, not chosen from regional caucuses, as provided for in a November 15 agreement reached between Bremer and the Iraqi Governing Council.
Hojatul Islam Ali Abdulhakim Alsafi, the second most senior cleric of Iraq, in a letter to President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has adopted a threatening tone by stating that their refusal to let the Iraqis chose their own institutions would drag their countries into a battle they would lose. Needless to say, Alsafi was saying what Sistani wasn’t saying directly and explicitly, but really meant to say.
Bush is not interested in turning Shi’ite wrath against the US occupation forces so close to the presidential elections in the United States. Chances are that Sistani will have his wishes granted. Bremer is reported to be consulting with Bush. But even the emergence of a Shi’ite-dominated democracy is not likely to mean the surfacing of a stable or a serene Iraq. There is a lot of fight still left in the Sunnis of the country. What is definitely different now is that the Sunnis will no longer look at the Shi’ites as mere minions, to be abused and ruled. By urging the Shi’ites to sit on the fence in the initial days following the ouster of dictatorship in Iraq, Sistani has assured a dominant political status for the Shi’ites in the Iraqi arena of power. That is just one reason why, when he speaks, everyone listens.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an Alexandria, Virginia, US-based independent strategic analyst.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact [email protected] for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
Working with the people of Iraq is one of the goals of the U.S., Sistani is part of that and he is respected.
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*Originally posted by Toddytapper: *
Fraudz, your opinion please.....
If democracy does come into Iraq, what do you think the power blocks would be like.......
[/QUOTE]
voting woulkd be strictly along ethnic and sectarian lines at this time.
Due to teh backlash against war, the most popular choices may not be the best for Iraqi people in the long run.
but lets see what happens
Just heard on Fox, Migthy Sistani left no room for compromise... Monkey said we will comply...LOL.... you bet you will comply.
“What we’re seeing is a showdown between the U.S. and the Shi’ites, who see their chance to take over the country,”
When Grand Ayatollah Sistani Speaks, Bush Listens](Yahoo News: Latest and Breaking News, Headlines, Live Updates, and More)
Believe it or not, the Grand Ayatollah Sistani is an Iranian, not an Iraqi who nows has is effectively exercising veto power over certain American plans for Iraq. But unlike the foreign occupying forces he commands huge respect and support of the Iraqi Shia Muslim majority, and can bring tens of thousands out on the street in his support.
Despite repeated requests by Paul Bremner to meet him, he has refused. 
this guy is great. hope he doesnt cave tho.
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*Originally posted by ravage: *
this guy is great. hope he doesnt cave tho.
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Believe me, it will be the American's who cave into many of Ayatollah Sistani's demands, for they dare not risk the wrath of the 16 million Iraqi Shia Muslims.
America is the ones responsible they occupied the land and everyone wants them out they only understand one language and that is the language of the gun.
**America design on iraq are all to clear to the people of the middle east they wish to divide iraq into 3 pieces.
A Kurdish enclave in the North, a Sunni enclave and a Shia region in the South. **
The Bush administration has decided to let the Kurdish region remain semi-autonomous as part of a newly sovereign Iraq. Therefore it appears that America is pushing for semi autonomous regions to take shape by June 2004. No doubt that later America will push for a federation of Iraq which eventually will be followed by independent states once the puppet rulers of the countries neighbouring Iraq have accepted the new reality.
The americans are encouraging this sectarian mentality of the 3 seperate regions, was there these bombings b4 the US invaded of course not.
The security will only happen when the occupying forces leave the country and iraq has its own sincere leadership and army.
There was one very high-profile Christian leader in Saddam Hussein's government. This is nothing about Sunnis or Shias. If it was, then Sistani and his Shia followers would be singing a very different tune right now, one that would be FAR less critical of Bremer's efforts at "freedom, democracy and progress" in Iraq.
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*“Our determination to work for a stable and democratic future for this country is undiminished.”
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*
God only help us now.
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*Originally posted by Nadia_H: *
There was one very high-profile Christian leader in Saddam Hussein's government. This is nothing about Sunnis or Shias. If it was, then Sistani and his Shia followers would be singing a very different tune right now, one that would be FAR less critical of Bremer's efforts
[/QUOTE]
Sistani knows that whatever form of democratic government controls Iraq will be Shia dominated. He wants it sooner and more complete than US wants.
These 'resistance fighters' that are killing a few coalition and a lot of Iraqis, are either part of the minority that used to rule Iraq, or foreign/domestic extremists who don't want any kind of a democratic future for Iraq.
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God only help us now.
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So you wish their determination to work for a stable and democratic future for this country be diminished? Abandon the quest for stability and democracy?