LOOKS LIKE IT'LL PLAY IN PERSIA:

Respected cleric gives tacit support to new Iraqi leaders (AP, 6/03/04)

Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric gave his tacit endorsement to the new interim government Thursday, and urged it to lobby the U.N. Security Council for full sovereignty to erase "all traces" of the American-run occupation. [...]

Al-Sistani's opposition to the government would have severely undermined its credibility because of the cleric's influence among Iraq's Shiite majority, believed to comprise about 60% of the country's 25 million people.

Al-Sistani's objections to U.S. policy in Iraq effectively derailed at least two blueprints put forward by Washington to chart the political future of Iraq.

He had demanded elections to choose the government to take power from the U.S.-run occupation at the end of this month but dropped his insistence after U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi decided that an early ballot was not possible because of poor security.

Iraqis will choose a transitional government by the end of January and elect a new administration after ratification of the new constitution next year.

With the new government set to take over in weeks, al-Sistani said the main tasks were to secure Iraq's sovereignty, relieve the suffering of its people, restore security and prepare for the January elections.

"The new government should get a clear resolution from the U.N. Security Council restoring sovereignty to Iraqis — a full and complete sovereignty in all its political, economic, military and security forms and endeavor to erase all traces of the occupation," al-Sistani's statement said.

The Ayatollah remains the driving force for more rapid and more thorough democratization of Iraq.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 3, 2004 8:54 AM