on al-sadr, sistani, and opposition to the occupation (hiro):
This indeed was the case with the demonstration on April 9 in Najaf. (...) The size of the demonstration and its composition were unprecedented. "There are people here from all different parties and sects," Hadhim al-Araji, Sadr's representative in Baghdad's Kadhimiya district, told reporters. "We are all carrying the national flag, a symbol of unity. And we are all united in calling for the withdrawal of the Americans."
(...) Crucially, the mammoth demonstration reflected the view prevalent among Iraqi lawmakers. Last autumn, 170 of them in a 275-member parliament, signed a motion, demanding to know the date of a future American withdrawal. The discomfited government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki played a procedural trick by referring the subject to a parliamentary committee, thereby buying time.
(...) Opinion polls conducted since then show three-quarters of Iraqi respondents demanding the withdrawal of the Anglo-American troops within six to 12 months.
(...) [on al-Sadr] Moqtada's father, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, and two elder brothers were assassinated outside a mosque in Najaf in February 1999 by the henchmen of President Saddam Hussein. The grand ayatollah had defied Saddam by issuing a religious decree calling on Shi'ites to attend Friday prayers in mosques. The Iraqi dictator, paranoid about large Shi'ite gatherings, feared these would suddenly turn violently anti-regime.
(...) [free speech?] When Paul Bremer, the American viceroy in Iraq, banned his magazine Al-Hawza al-Natiqa ("The Vocal Seminary") in April 2004 and American soldiers fired on his followers protesting peacefully against the publication's closure, Sadr called for "armed resistance" to the occupiers....Bremer let the ban on the magazine lapse and dropped his plan to arrest Sadr.
(...) [avoiding the surge] hen the Pentagon mounted its latest security plan for Baghdad on Feb. 13 – aiming to crush both the Sunni insurgents and Shi'ite militias – Sadr considered discretion the better part of valor. He ordered his Mahdi militiamen to get off the streets and hide their weapons. For the moment, they were not to resist American forays into Shi'ite neighborhoods. He then went incommunicado. Moqtada's decision to avoid bloodshed won plaudits not only from Iraqi politicians but also, discreetly, from Sistani, who decries violence, and whose commitment to bringing about the end of the foreign occupation of Iraq is as strong as Sadr's – albeit not as vocal.
(...) [najaf 2004] It was the Mahdi Army – controlling the shrine of Imam Ali, the founder of Shi'ite Islam, in the holy city of Najaf – that battled the American troops to a standstill in August 2004.
(...) [on sistani] Ali Sistani established his nationalist credentials early on. As the invading American forces neared Najaf on March 25, 2003, he issued a religious decree requiring all Muslims to resist the invading "infidel" troops. Once the Anglo-American forces occupied Iraq, he adamantly refused to meet American or British officials or their emissaries, and continues to do so to this day.
(...) [the constitution, january 2005] When Allawi began dithering about holding the vote for an interim parliament by January 2005, as stipulated by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1546, Sistani warned that he would call for popular non-cooperation with the occupying powers if it was not held on time. In the elections that followed, the United Iraqi Alliance – the brainchild of Sistani – emerged as the majority group and thus the leading designer of the new constitution. Respecting Sistani's views, the Iraqi constitution stipulated that Sharia (Islamic law) was to be the principal source of Iraqi legislation and that no law would be passed that violated the undisputed tenets of Islam.
(...) [hiro´s argument, then:] In sum, while refraining from participating in everyday politics, Sistani intervenes on the issues of paramount importance to the Iraqi people, as he sees them. Western journalists, who routinely describe him as belonging to the "quietist school" of Shi'ite Islam (at odds with the "interventionist school"), are therefore off the mark. Given Sistani's uncompromising opposition to the presence of foreign troops in Iraq, his staunch nationalism, and the unmatched reverence that he evokes, particularly among the majority Shi'ites, he poses a greater long-term threat to Washington's interests in Iraq than Moqtada al-Sadr; and, far from belonging to opposite schools of Shi'ite Islam, Sadr and Sistani, both staunch nationalists, complement each other – much to the puzzled frustration of the Bush White House.
(...) [on including the sunnis?] What must worry Washington more than the massive size of the demonstration on April 9 was its mixed Shi'ite-Sunni composition and nationalistic ambiance. The prospect of Sadr's appeal extending to a section of the Sunni community, with the tacit support of Sistani, is the nightmare scenario that the Bush administration most dreads. Yet it may come to pass.