SISTANI MOVES AGAINST U.S. AGREEMENT

Popular Opposition to Long-Term Security Agreement with U.S. Increases with Clerical Support; Sadr Moves to Exploit Fissure

Popular opposition to the long-term military agreement that the Iraqi government is currently negotiating with the United States has been clear for some time, as is the fact the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and the Najaf hawza would be attempting to block it. On Friday, Muqtada Sadr moved to take advantage of the issue and his followers protested widely, and now the American media has taken notice (see "Growing Opposition to U.S. Security Pact," New York Times, "Sadr Urges Followers to Protest U.S.-Iraq Pact," and "Shiites Across Iraq Protest U.S. Presence,"Washington Post).

While I do not discount the value of having a military pact in place, a successfully negotiated treaty will not be worth much if it cannot be implemented. Part of the problem is a lack of clarity as to precisely what the terms would be (discussed to some degree in the articles linked above), and part is due to the paranoia-mongering which is common in these kinds of debates. Nevertheless, it is looking increasingly likely that any final agreement - whatever its terms - will have a very hard time being approved.

Opposition to the treaty first began to crystallize in January, when 150 members of parliament (275 seats) reached a voting agreement which, among other things, stipulated opposition to a long-term military agreement with the United States. The primary items on the voting agreement related to the Kurds - the Kurdish oil contracts issue and the potential annexation of Kirkuk - but Arabic media reports generally also included this item. Prior to this past week, there were also indirect indications that Sistani and the Iraqi marja'iya was opposed as well. For example, when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Iraq at the beginning of March, he had intended to visit Najaf and meet with Sistani, but was turned back. According to the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Jarida al-Jadida, Sistani refused to meet with Ahmadinejad because he didn't want to give the impression that his opposition to the U.S. agreement was due to Iran (other sources simply said that Najaf didn't want Ahmadinejad around). Other sources claiming Sistani was opposed were similarly indirect.

Yet over the past week, prior to the Sadr-organized protest on Friday, it became clear that Sistani was now directly opposing the Iraqi government over the issue, a key fact largely overlooked in U.S. media coverage (the Post article referenced the issue by saying that "Aides to Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, have also expressed concerns," which is not really accurate - they are opposing it). The Arab newspaper al-Hayat as followed this closely. Last Thursday, May 29, al-Hayat reported that Sistani told Prime Minister Nuri Maliki during their most recent meeting that he should hold a popular referendum to approve the agreement
(Marja'iya Najaf Demands General Referendum on U.S.-Iraq Agreement). This was a blocking tactic; Sistani knows well that Maliki is unlikely to risk such a referendum, and public knowledge that he was refusing Sistani's demand for a referendum would firm up opposition within parliament (which, as noted above, was a majority anyway). Contrary to what is suggested by the headline of the second Post article linked above, this opposition is not necessarily to U.S. presence per se, but rather to the signing of a long-term security pact. (The Sadrists, of course, are opposed to any U.S. presence per se.)

Sistani's representative in Karbala, Ahmad Safi, used his Friday sermon to make Najaf's opposition to the pact more public and explicit ("Sistani Representative in Karbala: Marja'iya Against Agreement which Limits Future Generations," al-Hayat, May 31). The article noted that Sistani was not only opposed this agreement, but favored removing Iraq from Article 7 of the UN Charter, which limited its sovereignty. A separate article published the same day ("Hakim Confirms Negotiations with Washington have not Reached a Final Result and Hashemi Warns Against Crossing 'Red Lines'") quoted Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim and Tariq Hashemi, the country's most important Shia and Sunni politicians, respectively, as saying that the agreement was necessary but that they were opposed to certain elements put forward by American negotiators. So even those who favor the treaty are on the defensive.

Two additional considerations relating to the current political environment should be borne in mind.

First, Sadr may be able to use this issue to end his political isolation among Iraqi factions. During the recent and ongoing government operations against the Sadrists and the Mahdi Army, all the Sunni factions Sadr had been trying to court supported the government against him, and the Shia factions that weren't supporting the campaign essentially stood aside. No one stood with him. Sadr is enough of a problem when working against the Shia clerical establishment; now he is working with the wind to his back.

Second, Maliki's political base is extremely narrow, and he is in no position to push an unpopular treaty through parliament, much less mount a national referendum. His government has been a minority in parliament since last September, and attempts at negotiating a new governing majority have repeatedly failed. I estimate that only about 100 members of the 275-seat parliament support him generally. This would be an uphill fight.