From The New York Times
Dated Sunday March 20
A Nobel for Sistani
By Thomas Friedman
As we approach the season of the Nobel Peace Prize, I would like to nominate the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shiites, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, for this year's medal. I'm serious.
If there is a decent outcome in Iraq, President Bush will deserve, and receive, real credit for creating the conditions for democratization there, by daring to topple Saddam Hussein. But we tend to talk about Iraq as if it is all about us and what we do. If some kind of democracy takes root there, it will also be due in large measure to the instincts and directives of the dominant Iraqi Shiite communal leader, Ayatollah Sistani. It was Mr. Sistani who insisted that there had to be a direct national election in Iraq, rejecting the original goofy U.S. proposal for regional caucuses. It was Mr. Sistani who insisted that the elections not be postponed in the face of the Baathist-fascist insurgency. And it was Mr. Sistani who ordered Shiites not to retaliate for the Sunni Baathist and jihadist attempts to drag them into a civil war by attacking Shiite mosques and massacring Shiite civilians.
In many ways, Mr. Sistani has played the role for President George W. Bush that Nelson Mandela and Mikhail Gorbachev played for his father, President George H. W. Bush. It was Mr. Mandela's instincts and leadership - in keeping the transition to black rule in South Africa nonviolent - that helped the Bush I administration and its allies bring that process in for a soft landing. And it was Mr. Gorbachev's insistence that the dismantling of the Soviet Empire, and particularly East Germany, be nonviolent that brought the Soviet Union in for a soft landing. In international relations, as in sports, it is often better to be lucky than good. And having the luck to have history deal you a Mandela, a Gorbachev or a Sistani as your partner at a key historical juncture - as opposed to a Yasir Arafat or a Robert Mugabe - can make all the difference between U.S. policy looking brilliant and U.S. policy looking futile.
An intersting perspective.
As usual, I have my problems with Friedman's idea of what democracy
is. To me, it is a system of government based on universal, equal citizenship. I don't think that a system that allows foreign concerns to have a greater influence on a nation's economy is democratic; yet that is Mr. Bush's designs on Iraq. I don't think a system of government that allocates participation by how good a Muslim some elite council deems one to be is democratic; yet that seems to be where Iraq is headed under Sistani's influence.
Still, if Iraq can peacefully transition to a post-Saddam future, Sistani will have more to do with it than your favorite Frat Boy and mine.