When the rivalry of Shia political forces pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war last week, only one man was able to stop it, Iraq’s Shia authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, 92, who once again declared himself the most powerful of all religions. The country proved
Sistani has not commented publicly on the unrest in Iraq’s streets, but government officials and informed Shiite sources told Reuters that “Sistani’s position behind the scenes single-handedly defused the disaster.”
The events of Iraq’s bloodiest week in nearly three years show the limits of conventional politics in a country where the power to start and stop wars rests in the hands of clerics, many of whom have ambiguous ties to neighboring Shiite power Iran. .
Iraqis who took to the streets blamed Tehran for fueling the violence, which began after an Iran-based cleric denounced popular Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and ordered his followers, including al-Sadr himself, to follow orders from the supreme leader. Iran obey.
Sadr’s followers tried to attack government buildings. By night they were driving around Baghdad with loaded vans, machine guns and rocket launchers.
Gunmen, believed to be members of a pro-Iranian armed faction, opened fire on Sadr’s protesters who were throwing stones. Reuters says at least 30 people were killed.
Then, within 24 hours, it was over as suddenly as it had begun. Moqtada Sadr appeared on TV and asked for peace. His armed supporters and unarmed followers began to leave the streets, the army lifted the curfew and a fragile calm reigned over the capital.
Seeking to understand how the unrest started and how it was quelled, Reuters spoke to nearly 20 officials from the Iraqi government, the Sadr movement and rival Shiite factions that support Iran, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity.
All the interviews pointed to the strong behind-the-scenes involvement of Sistani, who has never held an official political position in Iraq but is considered the most influential cleric in Najaf, Iraq’s Shiite religious center.
According to officials, Sistani’s office sought to “make Sadr understand that if he does not stop the violence of his followers, Sistani will condemn the unrest.”
An Iraqi government official said: Sistani sent a message to Sadr that if he did not stop the violence, Sistani should issue a statement calling for an end to the fighting, which would make Sadr look weak, as if he had caused the bloodshed. in Iraq.”
Three Najaf-based Shia figures close to Sistani would not confirm that “his office had sent a clear message to Sadr,” but they said it was clear to Sadr that Sistani would speak soon unless Sadr stopped the unrest. “
A pro-Iranian official in the region said that without Sistani’s office, “Moqtada Sadr would not have held his press conference” that ended the conflict.
Sistani’s intervention may have prevented more bloodshed for the time being, but it does not solve the problem of maintaining peace in a country where most power rests outside the political system in the hands of Shia clerics, including clerics with close ties to them. Iran.
There is no clear successor to Sistani, who intervened decisively at critical moments in Iraq’s history after the US invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Despite his old age, not much is known about his health.
At the same time, “many of the most influential Shia figures, including Sadr himself, at different stages of his life, have studied, lived and worked in Iran, a government that does not separate the influence of the clergy from the power of the state. “
The violence began last week after Ayatollah Kazem al-Hairi, a prominent Shia cleric who was born in Iraq and has lived in Iran for decades, announced that he had retired from public life and closed his office due to old age. Is. This is a virtually unprecedented step in Shia history, where senior clerics are usually revered until death.
Al-Sadr’s father, also a prominent Shia religious authority who was assassinated by Saddam Hussein’s regime in 1999, chose al-Hairi as the spiritual guide of the Sadr movement. In announcing his retirement from public life, al-Hairi condemned Sadr for creating division among the Shiites and asked his followers to obey the order of Ayatollah Khamenei, the leader of Iran.
Al-Sadr has publicly stated that he holds foreign parties responsible for Hairi’s involvement, an implicit reference to Tehran. He wrote on his Twitter: Marjah’s retirement was not of his own accord.
A senior member of Sadr’s movement, based in Baghdad, said Sadr was angry. He said: “Al-Hairi was Sadr’s spiritual guide. Sadr saw this as a betrayal aimed at robbing him of his religious legitimacy as a Shiite leader, at a time when Iranian-backed groups are fighting for power.”
Officials of Sadr’s movement in Najaf said: “This step means that Sadr must choose between obeying his spiritual guide Hairi and following Khamenei, or rejecting him and perhaps angering old figures in his movement who were close to Sadr’s father. . “
Instead, al-Sadr announced his withdrawal from political life altogether, a move that prompted his followers to take to the streets. Neither the Iranian government nor Sadr’s office immediately responded to a request for comment on the incident, and Haeri’s office was not immediately contacted.
Shiite experts say that “Al-Hairi’s move to close his office and direct his followers to obey the Iranian leader would seem suspicious in the context of Iraq anyway, where the indications of Iranian involvement are very clear.”
“There are good reasons to believe that this is the result of Iranian pressure, but we should not forget that Haeri has had differences with al-Sadr in the past,” said Marcin Al-Shammari, a researcher at the Harvard Kennedy School.
He added: “He leads his followers to follow Khamenei when there is no (religious) need for it, and it seems unlikely that someone of his stature will close his potentially very profitable offices.”
While armed fighting continued in central Baghdad, al-Sadr remained silent for nearly 24 hours. At the time, Shia religious figures from across Iraq tried to convince al-Sadr to stop the violence. Officials of Iran and Lebanon stated that “Shia personalities of the two countries joined these efforts, adding that pressure was put on Sadr through Sistani’s office in Najaf.”
An Iraqi government official said: “The Iranians are not directly interfering, they are being influenced by the backlash against their influence in Iraq and are trying to influence events from afar.” Baghdad was calm on Friday, but the deadlock remains.
Sadr insists on holding new elections, while some Iran-backed groups want to move forward to form a government. Clashes started at the end of the week in the oil-rich areas of southern Iraq.
The government remained largely silent, with Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi saying in a statement released hours after the fighting ended on Tuesday that “he will step down if the violence continues.”
Renad Mansour, a London-based researcher at Chatham House, told Reuters: “Where is the prime minister, the commander-in-chief (of the armed forces) in all this?
“There could have been more violence,” he added.
He continued: Al-Sadr’s main focus is to become the main Shiite figure in Iraq, and for this reason, he wants to go after his Shiite opponents, and violence is one of the tools used in the competition in Iraq.
Ali Sistani was born on August 13, 1339 in the city of Mashhad and started his education at the age of 5 at the School of Religious Education to learn reading and writing and in 1941 under his supervision. Father migrated to Qom to complete his studies.
In 1951, he immigrated from Qom to Najaf, Iraq, and lived in al-Bukhari Seminary, then in 1340, after obtaining the degree of Ijtihad, he decided to travel to Mashhad and then returned to Najaf. And he started delivering his lectures, which dealt with a number of jurisprudential issues.
After the death of Muhammad Sadr, Sistani became the most prominent name in the leadership of the Shia authority and authority in Najaf, and the Shia authority gained more strength after the fall of Saddam Hussein and returned to its peak. Again the political and social scene
Despite Sistani’s belief in the clergy’s special mission to keep them out of political affairs, during the post-US occupation of Iraq, he continued to express his views on sensitive issues such as the transitional government law. The formation of a transitional government as well as elections.
He expressed his concern about the increasing control of major political parties with strong ties to the American occupiers and the majority of them exiles over the political process in Iraq, but in return he did not call on his followers to resist the occupation. His numerous warnings to Americans and his calls for peaceful resistance.
and supporting the list of the United Iraqi Coalition, in which power is concentrated from the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq and its allies who are considered loyal to Iran, which was in favor of this list in the first Iraqi elections after 2017. The fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime
After this organization’s control over Mosul and other Iraqi provinces, which became the basis for the establishment of the Hashd al-Shaabi “militia”, he held many key positions, the most important of which was the fatwa of “adequate jihad to fight ISIS”. which includes many Iraqi Shia “groups” loyal to Iran.
Sistani remained the kingpin of Najaf and was visited by many Iraqi and international figures, but he never spoke directly to the media and his views continued to be channeled through aides or those who claim to be close to him. Him.
Source: Lebanon Debate
