GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT:

Meeting of Iraqi Leaders Gives Lift to U.S. Plan on Power Shift (JOEL BRINKLEY, 11/28/03, NY Times)

The American plan to transfer power to Iraq regained some momentum on Thursday, after a meeting between two leading Iraqi political figures.

Jalal Talabani, the president of the Iraqi Governing Council, traveled to Najaf to confer with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the senior Iraqi cleric who had raised objections to the American plan for indirect elections for a new provisional government. Afterward, both sides appeared to be moving toward a possible compromise.

Ayatollah Sistani exercises strong influence over Iraq's majority Shiites, and on Wednesday his spokesmen said he was insisting that the election planned for next June must be a direct, popular ballot and not the indirect caucus election called for in the American plan.

That threw the future of the plan for speeding up self-rule into doubt. The American authorities have maintained that popular elections are impossible in the absence of a census, which cannot be completed by next summer. But at a news conference on Thursday night, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a Shiite cleric and member of the Governing Council who is close to Ayatollah Sistani, said there was room for negotiation.

"There are different proposals for getting the opinion of the Iraqi people," he said. "The best way would be to have a census and election law, and elections. But in these circumstances, there are other ways you can reach the views of the Iraqi people."

"The most important thing," he added, "is to end the occupation."

Our interests converge--they don't want us there and we don't want to be there.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 28, 2003 10:52 AM