"RELIGIOUS CLERICS' authority growing in war-torn Iraq"

[Bluebear]

Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye: Make sure to tell your freeper uncle and the nice lady next door who "just feels safer with Bush" what all these soldier's lives and money and have bought: the "freedom" to go into civil war and establish an Islamic theocracy.


"The reality of clerical power here discomforts U.S. officials..." :eyes: Yes, totally unexpected. Nobody could have envisioned this blah blah blah.
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BAGHDAD, Iraq — Rarely since the U.S.-led invasion have Iraq's politicians appeared so insignificant and its religious clergy loomed so large as in the 48 hours since Wednesday's bombing of the Shiite Golden Mosque in Samarra.

Few Iraqis paid attention to Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and other leaders of political parties who called for calm. But many winced or smiled as the office of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the paramount Shiite leader here, issued an unusually bellicose statement suggesting it was time for "the faithful" to protect religious sites — an apparent endorsement of militias.

Others listened to every word uttered and watched every gesture made by Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric, as he rushed from Lebanon back to Iraq after the explosion...

"If the religious leaders decided to go all the way to a civil war they could, in no time," said Hassan Bazzaz, a political scientist at Baghdad University. "And if they really wanted to stop it, they could. The religious leaders are the ones who have the real power."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002825508_clerics24.html