Obama’s Secret Letter to Sistani!

In a news exclusive published in the American magazine Foreign Policy August 6, 2010, under the title “Obama Sent a Secret Letter to Iraq’s Top Shiite Cleric” (subtitled: “But can Ayatollah Sistani break Baghdad’s political impasse?”), Barbara Slavin reported that President Obama sent a secret letter to Grand Ayatollah Sistani “urging him to prevail upon Iraq’s squabbling politicians to finally form a new government.”

The letter which Slavin is referring to was mentioned to her by a source who requested that his name not be revealed because of the subject’s sensitivity. The source received word of the letter’s existence from one of Sistani’s relatives in the Shiite holy city of Qum in Iran. The delivery of the letter was completed with the help of a Shiite member of the Iraqi parliament. The letter, according to the source, “… was a request for [Sistani’s] intervention in the political situation to use his influence with the Shiite groups and get them to compromise.”

For his part, National Security Council Spokesman Mike Hammer neither confirmed nor denied that Obama sent a message to Sistani, saying in an e-mail, “We do not comment on presidential correspondence.” In a like manner, Hamid al-Khaffaf, Sistani’s official spokesman, said, “We have no comment on the matter of a letter [being sent by Obama to Sistani].”* It is strange that the response on this issue was so similar from two different people.

Daniel Serwer, an expert on Iraq at the U.S. Institute of Peace, confirmed that Sistani has not met with any American officials and that he has no desire to do so. All the same, Serwer described Obama’s message as “a clever idea. Sistani has repeatedly intervened in ways that are supportive of democracy in Iraq. And he is a powerful force.”

The source related that the message was received by Sistani shortly following the visit of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden to Iraq four weeks ago. Biden had failed to come up with a solution to Iraqi disagreements surrounding the formation of a new government. However, he said that he was optimistic that a new Iraqi government will be formed and moreover, that the challenges facing Iraq are no more than are faced by other countries that have parliamentary political systems.

Kenneth Katzman, an expert on Iraqi issues with the Congressional Research Service, points out that “Sistani’s intervention would be to get Maliki to step down and compromise on a new candidate,” emphasizing that efforts toward compromise in “… forming a new government in Iraq have faltered in part because Maliki has alienated all the other major factions, yet refuses to allow anyone to replace him.” In my opinion, Maliki is not the only cause of deadlock. The problem in Iraq has no relation to Maliki and the persistence of his party in endorsing his candidacy to remain prime minister. Rather, the problem is that all three large parties are persisting in their demands and will not compromise.

Katzman doubts that Sistani will support Ayad Allawi, whose party carried the highest number of votes in the last elections, and he suggests that alternatives to both Maliki and Allawi could include Adel Abdul Mahdi (a prominent member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq) or Jafar Baqr al-Sadr (son of the martyred Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Baqr al-Sadr).

I am of the opinion that if this message exists, it indicates the following:

1. The immaturity of democracy and its Iraqi practitioners, in that they have not been able, after seven years of a democratic experiment, to solve their political problems by themselves despite extensive dialogue and discussion. This has led to America, as the shepherd of democracy in Iraq, asking the Shiite Grand Ayatollah Sistani to intervene and work his influence upon Iraq’s sparring politicians.

2. Sayyid Sistani cannot impose his opinion on the secular and Sunni parties in Iraq, just as he does not enforce his opinion in the first place even on Shiite parties such as the Islamic Supreme Council for Iraq, the Dawa Party and the Islamic Virtue Party. It is not because these parties follow the leadership of theological authorities other than Sistani, but rather because the policy of non-intervention on political issues is part of the ideas and principles of Sistani.

3. Even though Sistani spokesman Hamid al-Khaffaf issued a statement on June 18 of this year affirming that if the crisis continued, then Sistani might intervene for the sake of solving it, I believe that an intervention by Sistani does not mean that he intends to impose his view or agenda upon the contending political parties. Rather, it will be another kind of intervention so that Sistani will not have to bear [responsibility] for the consequences of the eventual compromise to a degree that is any higher than necessary.

*Editor’s Note: This quote, correctly translated, could not be verified.