Iraq, therefore, is identified as the battlefield that Iran is preparing to conquer in order to fight the western world(1). After the fall of the dictator, Saddam Hussein, the Islamic republic had two objectives to pursue in Iraq: to make life difficult for the Americans, in order to detract attention from the Iranian nuclear programme, and to affirm its influence on the hawzah(2) and on the two Shiite holy cities, Karbala(3) and Najaf(4), to prevent the birth of a strong and independent religious symbol that could - and can - compete with the holy city of Qom(5-6).
Iranian conservatives have already shown that they fear the insurgence in the new Iraq of ayatollahs who do not follow the “diktak” of the Khomeini revolution. In fact, an independent clergy could cause Iran to lose a dominant role on the Iraq political scene and on the religious one of the Shiite world.
The Iraqi newspaper, Al-Nahdha, reported that in 1979, Iranian agents, disguised as pilgrims, exploiting the freedom to sell books in the new democratic Iraq, had tried to distribute propaganda pamphlets(7), to export and assert the dogmas of Ayatollah Khomeini.
The Iraqi newspaper, Al-Mashreq, in an article entitled, “Let us not be surprised to see Iranian flags flying over the city of Karbala”, denounced a plan of ‘cultural invasion’ which Iran is trying to introduce into Iraq(8).
The great Ayatollah Alì Al-Sistani, the most influential Shiite priest in Iraq, immediately after the elections, clarified his political position: “there should be no turbans in the new government”. His plain, but direct words, underline the opposition to the principle of union between State and Religion, which Iran is trying to export to Iraq.
Ayatollah Al-Sistani, decisive during the period of the passage from the Provisional Coalition Authority to the Interim Government, has always shown his support of a religious vision which is different from the clergy of the Islamic republic.
In fact, not one of his actions has ever suggested a wish to expose Iraq to an autocracy of the Iran variety(9).
On the contrary, Ayatollah Al-Sistani stated that he would have had no objection to the election of a Christian as President of Iraq, had he had the appropriate qualifications(10).
Not only, the election winning National Iraqi Alliance, which besides representing the Shiite majority, enjoying the direct consultation of Ayatollah Al-Sistani, had among its candidates, Sunnite, failis (Shiite Kurds), Turkmenistan and yazdi (Kurd group)(11).
Because of its political position, in contrast with the Iranian conservatives, the pan- Arab London based newspaper, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, wrote that before the elections, the Revolutionary Guards had made an attempt on the life of Al-Sistani.
Furthermore, the same newspaper reported further proof given by a former officer who had deserted the Iranian Intelligence Unit, operative in Iraq. According to his testimony, the assassination of the Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir Al-Hakim, former chief of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) had been carried out by the Iranian Army Al-Quds.
During the Islamic festivity of eid Al-Adha, there had been various and repeated failed attempts to kill Ayatollah Al-Sistani(12).
The election period in Iraq has emphasized that, contrary to what Western observers are accustomed to believe, Shiism is not a monolithic block under the total control of the Iranian clergy.


Shiism: interventionist or
non-interventionist

Shiism can be divided into two main streams: “usoolyia” and “ikbaria”, commonly translated by English speaking Middle East scholars into “activist” and “quietist” or else, interventionist and non-interventionist.
Shiism, in all its history, has never fixed the degree of authority that a jurist-clergyman (mujtahid, “he who knows how and where to find the religious laws to be followed, by searching the ‘appropriate sources’ and he who is considered to be the most knowledgeable”al-a’lam), is permitted to exercise in political matters.
The participation of the mujtahid depends, therefore, on the social and historical period with which we are dealing. In fact, the Shiite clergy, enjoys a certain margin of flexibility to overcome problems, through its use of reason (‘aql) in applying the ‘divine law’ in the best way.
The first interventionism in modern epoch (better defined as “almost-interventionism”) appeared, for the first time, under the dominion of the Qajar dynasty(13) , in the 19th century.
The mujtahid accepted the spiritual legitimacy of the rulers, who had to follow the precepts of the Shari’a, the Islamic law. Between the 50’s and the 60’s, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini takes up again this religious line, seeking the cooperation of the State.
The “white revolution”(14) carried ahead by Shah Muhammad Reza in 1963, to bring about a western type of reform - as was also happening in Egypt under the guidance of President Anwar Sadat - threatened the rights on the feudal properties of the absentee land owners and the moral status of the ulema, who were contrary to the importation of forms of thoughts adopted in Europe and in the United States. This ‘white revolution’, besides generating dissatisfaction within the population, it is considered one of the causes/pretexts used by the Iranian religious class to seize power. In these years, Khomeini invents an interventionist “theological policy”, which results in the Islamic revolution in 1979, with the outcome of the unification of State and religion.

Therefore, the dichotomy division of Shiism is born with Khomeini.
His new and “innovative” religious concept foresaw a temporal power reform, replacing it with a government composed of fuqaha (pl. faqih), the jurists composed of religious ulema.
This doctrine is better known by the name of wilayat al-faqih, the administration/authority of the jurist, or better, the leadership of the jurist in the society, which is the title of the most important work written by Khomeini.
The use of the word faqih, - jurist, instead of mujtahid or marja’: the highest authority in terms of Shiism religion and law, underlines the will of Khomeini to put the fiqh (from which the word faqih derives), - the Islamic jurisprudence, at the centre of the new legal system and make the Shiite clergy the authority responsible for all the spheres of the law.
The central point of the new Iranian interventionist approach derives, therefore, from the change in the political scenario which made the Ayatollahs feel in conditions of duty and power to start a new political philosophy opposite to centuries of the non-interventionist Shiite way of thinking.


Alì Al-Sistani as opposed to Khomeini

Ayatollah Khomeini is the inventor and representative of interventionist Shiism, which, today, is supported not only by the Iranian conservative clergy, but also by Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese political and military movement, Hizbollah and by Muqtaba Al-Sadr, son of Mohammed Baqir Al-Sadr who was killed in 1999, with two of his sons, presumably on the orders of Saddam Hussein.
The Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani(15) , on the contrary, represents the traditional, non- interventionist Shiism.
This type of approach was inevitable for survival under the Baath regime in Iraq.
The “subversive” Shiite clergy, which could be an obstacle to the regime of the ex-dictator Saddam Hussein, were imprisoned, tortured and killed.
In the past, in fact, Shiism has kept a low profile, non-interventionist political line, because it originated as a minority religion (excluding the first centuries from the birth of the religious movement, e.g. the Ismailism period).
Ali Al-Sistani, of Iranian origin, is the most important Shiite clergyman in Iraq. After his studies in the Iranian city of Qom, he moved to Najaf, in Iraq, under the guidance of the great Ayatollah Abul-Qassim Khoei. In the 60’s, he became marj’, or better, marja’-e-taqlid,- source of emulation. Sistani, influenced by the teachings of his tutor, keeps politics separated from religion.
After the first Gulf war, following a rebellion, Khoei was persecuted by the baathists and imprisoned for a short period. He dies in 1992 and Sistani takes over his role.
In 2003, after the second Gulf war, Sistani launches a fatwa imposing non-participation of the Shiite clergy in politics. He then supported the thesis according to which the Islamic law is “one” of the sources of law in the new Iraq, but not the only source of law.


Shiites in Iran and Iraq after the victory
of Ahmadinejad and the Iraqi Charter

The victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the Iranian Presidential elections represented the beginning of the “second Islamic revolution” in the country(16). Before his rise to power, the military apparatus, the judicial system and the religious establishment were already in the hands of the conservatives.
The municipal elections in 2003 and the legislative elections in 2004 had given the conservatives total control of the centres of power. With the election of Ahmadinejad(17) , the reformists lost all of their political representation.
The present Iranian President is the first head of state of the Islamic republic who is not a religious person, but Ahmadinejad is, however, part of the ‘middle’ generation of the Islamic revolution, faithful to the religious and political values of the Ayatollah Khomeini.
After the presidential elections, the difference between Iranian and Iraqi Shiites was more evident during the drafting of the Iraqi Constitution.
A few weeks before the signing of the Charter by the various political factions, with the exception of the Sunnites, Premier Ibrahim Al-Jaafari had approached Ayatollah Al-Sistani who, in a pragmatic manner, gave his approval to define Islam as “one primary source of the law” in the Charter, in this way, putting into the foreground how far from the Khomeini religious ambitions was the Shiite city of Najaf.
What is more, the rivalry between the Arabs and the Persians consolidated even more the will of the Iraqi Shiites not to be influenced by either the political or religious viewpoints of the neighbouring Iran.
In an informal enquiry – which does not, however, represent the feelings of the whole religious community – carried out among the Iraqi Shiites to describe their identity, they put in the first place; their belonging to Iraq, in second place; their being Arabs and Moslems, mentioning, only as a last point; their Shiite identity(18).
During the war between the two countries, which lasted eight years, the Iraqi Shiites did not support Iran but remained loyal to their own country.
Iyad Jamal Al-Din, one of the most prominent Iraqi Shiite leaders, declared on the Lebanese television (Lbc tv) that he favoured a lay government which separated the State from religion, in contrast to the Khomeini principle of wilayat al-faqih, adding that his freedom as a Shiite and a person of faith would never be complete without preserving the freedom of other ethnic groups and faiths in the country, and that he could not preserve freedom of the Mosques without safeguarding also that of the night clubs(19).
The Iraqi Charter, supported and signed by the Shiites, with the formal consent of Al-Sistani, diverges on fundamental points from that of the Iranian.
Notwithstanding the initial position of the Shiites of wanting to define the country as an Islamic state, the final Constitution accepted by them, describes Iraq as a republican, parliamentary, democratic and federal State.

Unlike Iran, which in Article I of the Charter, defines its country as an Islamic Republic.
Islam is the official religion, but it is also “one” of the principle legislation sources and it is unlawful to issue any law which is in contradiction with the basic principles of democracy.
Article 2 of the Iranian Constitution sanctions, instead, the values of the Islamic revolution. Al-Sistani, the first religious authority in the Shiite world, after the refusal of the Charter by the Sunnites, declared his refusal of federalism and requested the Shiites to carry ahead the unity of the country through a government which must be central, national and elected. All of which will not happen if the unity of the country is not realized in the Constitution and accepted by the people.
Al-Sistani speaks in these words: “The Sunnites are your people and this time, you must stay on their side so that they will be on your side in the future. You must consider them as your brothers and you must not harbour rancour because, both of you were victims of Saddam(20).
His statement shows, once again, intentions which are opposite to Shiite Iran, which would like to build a single religious state, incorporating the Iraqi Shiites. Unlike Al-Sistani, who pushes towards a united Iraq, which finds agreement and compromise with the minorities of the Country.


Conclusion

Ayatollah Al-Sistani represents the clergy of the holy city of Najaf, the heart of Shiism.
He is an ever-growing popular religious figure.
A plausible scenario could be that the Iranian people follow the leadership and teachings of Al-Sistani, adopting a non-interventionist approach, leaving behind the Khomeini vision.
The conservatives of the Islamic Republic could find themselves in great difficulty. At the moment, their opponents are only the reformists. They can, therefore, always count on the support of the religious population.
If, however, Al.Sistani comes to be seen as the symbol of Shiism, then the Iranian conservatives risk losing any type of support; to be ultimately replaced by the Iraq Shiism, thereby losing their hegemony in the Iranian State.
Therefore, after evaluating the two currents of Shiism, the question is: will Iraq influence Iran and not vice versa?
The analysis of King Abdullah II of Jordan represents a common preoccupation for the Sunnite world, which feels threatened by the Shiites, whether they are interventionists, or not.
For centuries, the Sunnites have been fighting with the followers of Alì and, in fact, they feel they are losing their dominant role in Iraq(21).
The Hashemite warning of the Shiite danger in Baghdad – expressed in a less direct way by the Al Jazeera satellite TV transmission – can, therefore, be interpreted in a political-religious key.