Foreign Correspondence

[otraque]

No propaganda here, but with the usual western anti-Islam slant--and one wonders why muslims world-wide see this as a Crusade to destroy Islam and install wild west greed capitalism which is one of the most sacred banners of the CRW.
i wonder how many western traders in the sex-slave trade are are seeing dollars in turning the slums of Baghdad into The Bangkok of the Middle-East????
These western male power mongers thinking "bet ah those Iraq women are a good f---, man we can get Baghdad to Rock".
O i forgot, this is about democracy; damned i keep forgetting!!!!
http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3146701

<<Sistani ends the siege

Aug 27th 2004
From The Economist Global Agenda


Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has struck a deal to end the bloody three-week siege of Najaf's Imam Ali shrine. But the agreement leaves rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr at large and confirms Mr Sistani as a figure who wields uncomfortable influence over the Iraqi government

ALL the force of the American marines couldn't do it. Nor could Iyad Allawi, Iraq's interim prime minister. But the moral authority of the frail, 73-year-old Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani was enough to persuade the armed followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, a young firebrand cleric, to leave the holiest of shrines in the holy city of Najaf. On Friday August 27th, Mr Sadr's Mahdi Army militiamen, who had been engaged in a bloody stand-off with American and Iraqi government forces for three weeks, were reported to have handed in their weapons and left the Imam Ali shrine, melting in with the thousands of pilgrims flocking there.

The deal was negotiated during a 24-hour ceasefire ordered by Mr Allawi, which had begun on Thursday afternoon. Mr Sistani, Iraq's most respected Shia cleric, had swept into Iraq from Kuwait hours earlier, at the head of thousands of pilgrims, having flown into the region on Wednesday from London, where he had undergone heart surgery. His absence had left a vacuum in which Mr Sadr, a relatively junior cleric whose father and uncle were killed by order of Saddam Hussein,( -this the fact as the Iraqi Ambassador to Moscow today pours out horrendous propaganda lies to the press that Sadr was tight with Saddamist---incredible--wl) was able to present himself as the leader of Shia resistance to the coalition occupation. When he called on his supporters to occupy the shrine, they followed in their hundreds. Marines were sent to defeat the insurgents, but though they advanced to within 400 metres of the shrine, concern about inflaming Muslim opinion kept them from attacking the building.




Various members of Iraq's religious elite and its government tried to persuade the Mahdi Army to leave the mosque, but Mr Sadr proved a tricky and elusive negotiator--indeed, he has not been seen in public for some time and may have fled several days ago. But though several recent reports of a breakthrough in Najaf have proved false, the latest deal seems to be holding, for now. The Reuters news agency reported that Iraqi police had taken control of the area around the shrine on Friday afternoon. Al-Arabiya, a satellite-television station, reported that Mr Sistani had been given the keys to the mosque.

Under the agreement, Sadrist fighters were to lay down their arms and to leave the holy compound by 10am on Friday morning. Those who did so were to be given an amnesty. Mr Sadr himself, who is wanted on charges of murdering a fellow cleric last year, was also to be allowed to go free. And the American marines too were to withdraw from Najaf. The safety of the city, and of the neighbouring city of Kufa, is to be the responsibility of Iraq's fledgling police and security forces. The government has agreed to pay compensation to the victims of the fighting. ( which they will have to ask Big Daddy Uncle Sam for the money--good luck--wl)

The deal appears to herald a victory for Mr Sistani's moderate, collegiate brand of Islam over the more confrontational, demagogic type practised by Mr Sadr (and also by the Shia theocrats who run neighbouring Iran). Mr Sistani, unlike his younger rival and Iran's leaders, believes that clerics should not run countries. However, despite his avowed desire to remain above the political fray, the grand ayatollah has had a strong influence over the evolution of post-war Iraq. Most importantly, his insistence on early elections forced the United States to change its plans.

If Mr Sistani adopts the same stance with Mr Allawi as he did with Paul Bremer, America's former proconsul in Iraq, the interim prime minister will have a lot to contend with. The deal in Najaf has re-established Mr Sistani as the country's most influential political figure. If the ayatollah chooses to reassert himself in everyday politics, Mr Allawi will probably have to send emissaries to Najaf to consult with him every time he wants to float a new initiative. The prime minister is unlikely to relish such a prospect.

Moreover, despite Mr Sistani's assertions that he does not want a role in politics, some Kurds and other secular Iraqis worry that they might just be exchanging one would-be theocrat for another. Mr Sistani may be less of a rabble-rouser than Mr Sadr, but he is equally hostile to federalism and anxious to impose an Islamic identity on the rest of Iraq, they fear.( Gawd Forbid!!!! The Horror, he wants to impose an Islamic identity to Iraq---how could Sistani wish such evil to keep an Islamic identity to a country which for well over 1,000 years has had an Islamic identity--the man must be a fanatic-- no this invasion is not at all an attempt for the Judeo/Christian world to crush Islam--OF COURSE NOT, yeh sure---wl


For now, though, debates about federalism and secularism seem moot. More than 100 people were killed, and more than 500 injured, in shootings and mortar attacks around Najaf and Kufa on Thursday, even as Mr Sistani and his supporters were marching on Najaf to end the conflict. On the same day, an attack by insurgents on oil facilities near Basra helped reverse the fall in oil prices from a peak of almost $50 a barrel a week ago. On Friday, the Italian government confirmed that a freelance journalist, Enzo Baldoni, had been killed by his kidnappers because of its refusal to withdraw its troops from Iraq. With much of the country still lawless, the level of influence wielded by an elderly cleric is not the most immediate of worries.