How Iraq's Most Senior Cleric Became a Major Power Broker

Geneive Abdo

Politics, Middle East

He might play a more pivotal role than Iraq’s own president.

It is no secret that Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s premier Shia authority, altered his role as a strictly religious figure and dove head-on into the country’s politics after the U.S. invasion. But as of late, Sistani is finding himself as an arbiter not only of the Shia-Sunni divide, but also as an attempted peacemaker in what is becoming a violent crisis among the Shia themselves.

Iraq’s government is listening to him, primarily because, as the ayatollah and his aides continually point out in the midst of increasing chaos, the Shia-led government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi cannot protect the majority-Shia population, nor end the internal rifts. The weak Iraqi state and military recently demonstrated it is unable to protect the Shia from Islamic State. The renegade Shia militias (Popular Mobilization Forces) backed by Iran—which, for the most part, maintain their allegiance to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards—have shown their allegiances lie elsewhere, even though some are working alongside the Iraqi state.

Sistani’s increasing role in politics, and that of the clerical establishment in general, is a good indication that Iraqi society will continue to become more religious, although it is unlikely to end up with the form of governance of Iran’s theocracy, where the head of state is an appointed ayatollah.

The deadliest single bombing in Iraq, in thirteen years of war, took place on July 2, in the Baghdad district of Karrada, a commercial district on the east bank of the Tigris River, and was claimed by ISIS. However, the tensions that the bombing created evolved into a Shia-against-Shia struggle, and political leaders accused the government of failing to protect Shia-dominated areas from ISIS.

Sistani made his views known immediately after the attack. His spokesman, Ahmed al-Safi, said after Friday prayers: “What happened in Karrada is the result of the absence of a government vision, rampant corruption, lack of professionalism and the lack of structure in establishing fundamental changes to the intelligence and security apparatuses while tolerating the presence of corrupt losers at the expense of civilian lives.”