Bowing to the Mighty Ayatollah

Bowing to the Mighty Ayatollah

With both its authority and its transition plans in jeopardy, the administration has decided the United Nations has some legitimacy after all

Jan. 26 issue - There really should be no contest. On one side is history's most important superpower, victorious in war, ruling Iraq with 150,000 troops and funding its reconstruction to the tune of $20 billion this year. On the other side is an aging cleric with no formal authority, no troops, little money, who is unwilling to even speak in public. Yet last June, when Ayatollah Sistani made it known that he didn't like the American plan to transfer power to Iraqis, the plan collapsed. And last week, when Sistani announced that he is still unhappy with the new American proposal, Paul Bremer rushed to Washington for consultations. What does this man have that the United States doesn't?

Legitimacy. Sistani is regarded by Iraqi Shiites as the most learned cleric in the country. He is also seen as having been uncorrupted by Saddam Hussein's reign. "During the Iran-Iraq War, Sistani managed to demonstrate that he could be controlled neither by Saddam nor by his fellow ayatollahs in Iran, which has given him enormous credibility," says Yitzhak Nakash, the leading authority on Iraqi Shiites.

The United States fears that he will brand them as colonialists and the new transition government as a puppet regime. American officials know these few words could well derail their plans. The occupation can survive an insurgency, but it cannot survive 10 countrywide protest marches with thousands chanting "Colonialists

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Bowing to the Mighty Ayatollah