"Iraqi Shi’ites show little interest in forging closer ties with Iran" December 16, 2011|By Liz Sly, Washington Post
NAJAF, Iraq - When a senior Iranian cleric said last month that he was planning to move to this holy Shi’ite city to open an office, the furor that erupted offered a glimpse into the future of a complicated relationship.
As American troops leave Iraq, Iran certainly ranks high among the beneficiaries of their nearly nine-year presence. As a Shi’ite power that suffered enormously during an eight-year war with a Sunni-dominated Iraq in the 1980s, Iran now can generally count on closer ties with a friendly Shi’ite government next door.
But the biggest winners of all have been Iraqi Shi’ites, whose ascent to power reversed nearly 1,400 years of sometimes brutal Sunni domination. And although Iraqi Shi’ites broadly welcome the departure of the Americans, they seem in no mood to substitute one form of foreign domination for another - and least of all, they say, from Iran.
Little-known fact: Iraq's Shi'ite Arabs fought for Saddam Hussein against the Persian Shi'ite Iranians, while the Kurds sided with Iran. That's why they got the gas.
Nowhere is that more evident than in Najaf, the spiritual capital of Shi’ite Islam, the site of its holiest shrine and a base for a new form of Iraqi nationalism, one that asserts the doctrines and rituals of the Shi’ite faith but also embraces a distinct Iraqi identity.
“Do you know who in Iraq hates Iran more than anyone? It is Najaf,’’ said Neama al-Ebadi, director of the Najaf-based Iraq Center for Research and Studies, echoing a view widely expressed on the streets of the city. “The Shi’ites of Iran are Iranian first. They think they’re superior to Arabs. But Najafis believe they are the original Shi’ites and the Iranians are just copies.’’
I'm sort of sick of agenda-pushing sectarianism in my Zionist War Daily, sorry. Didn't I make that clear earlier?
Whadda ya mean Sunni Arab Iraqis vacation in Shi'ite Iran?
Under the stewardship of the revered Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Najaf’s religious authorities, or marjaya, have become a beacon of moderation for the newly established Shi’ite order. The authorities have moved firmly to assert their quietist school of Shi’ite religious thought, under which the clerics are expected to merely advise rather than participate in politics, as they do in Iran.
So the announcement last month that Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, a prominent ally of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and a leading proponent of the Iranian “wilayat al-faqih’’ theory of governance, intended to move to Najaf was greeted with gasps of dismay, not only in Najaf but also beyond.
Shahroudi’s credentials, as the head of Iran’s judiciary until last year, and the timing of the announcement, just weeks before US troops complete their withdrawal, seemed to leave little doubt that the move represented a bid by Iran to step up its role in Iraq as American influence wanes, said Babak Rahimi, professor of religious studies at the University of California at San Diego.
Then we will just have to go back in, huh?
Rahimi said that although Shahroudi was born in Iraq, he has spent many years in Iran, and “many Iraqis see this guy as having an Iranian agenda.’’
It couldn't be any worse than the neo-con Zionist agenda that flattened and poisoned the place.
Najaf did not roll out the welcome mat. however. Instead, in the shadow of the gold-domed Imam Ali shrine, the narrow alleys of this ancient city were abuzz with speculation that Iran hopes to promote Shahroudi as a potential successor to the octogenarian Sistani, who is regarded as the leading religious authority for Shi’ites around the world.
Sistani was reported to be furious. He instructed his followers not to meet with any of Shahroudi’s representatives. And after Sistani declined to send a representative to the inauguration of the office, ahead of the ayatollah’s arrival from Iran, other Najaf clerics also distanced themselves from Shahroudi, confided one of the robed, white-turbaned religious students who declined to give his name because of the sensitivity of the subject.
As we see again, it is MORE ABOUT POWER and CONTROL than RELIGION!
But let's not let that get in the way of the agenda-pushing.
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