When you speak of an Islamic state, the thing that pops into not just our minds but the minds of most Iraqis is the idea of Iran, and I have to say that is a very unappealing image, because it doesn't have much attraction for many in Iraq. Those who stand to benefit are the clerics themselves. This is not the image or model which appeals to average Shia. There are quite a few Shia I have met who are moderate and observing, who are somewhat secular, who say, "I want some of these clerics to butt out of my life, yet I respect them." This is why I respect Ayatollah Sistani [Iraq's highest-ranking Shia cleric] so much. He is called to take a position but does so in a way that is moderate, and by and large we don't want clerics to be overly prescriptive in our daily lives. That probably does represent the subdued majority of educated Shiites.
I see Moktada Sadr as a flash in the pan in the Shiite movement. His negatives are piling up at too fast a rate, and even some of his followers are becoming disillusioned and taking their distance from him. I know of one ayatollah who walked away from him saying that his lines and Sadr's were not compatible. He will find himself surrounded by fewer and fewer people.
The Sunnis have a real identity problem. For 400 years they have predominated in this area, and how can any of the several alternatives before them reconcile them to the loss of 400 years of privilege, power, immunity, and even the power to abuse? Is there anything that the future of Iraq can offer them that is going to be quite as intoxicating as what they had? Some of their leaders say, "Let's make the best of it." What's the alternative? Because the Shia have been, at least publicly, very forbearing. I've never encountered a disposition on the part of the Shiites whom I've spoken to -- "Don't you think it would be nice to pay them back a little bit?" They say, "No, no, we must live together as brothers and sisters in a unified Iraq." And I would think some of the Sunnis, when they go to bed tonight, are a little anxious, thinking, "After independence, if things go badly, if we're too provocative, there might be a Shiite backlash."
Everyone is circling around, not Mexican standoff style, but cautiously, realizing they have to handle the others with some care, some respect, with some diplomacy. The Sunnis say, "Better not provoke the Shiites; they have long memories." The Shiites say, "Look, those Sunnis, keep an eye on them. We have to live with them, but let's not look for a fight." It will be an extraordinary political stew that is going on. So you look for what is the center, about which the state can emerge. There are a couple of moderate Sunnis and Shias -- in their public lives secular, in personal lives pious. Will they be sufficiently strong to make a bridge to connect the communities?
I really hope that the system, after 35 years of the school of hard knocks under Saddam, can keep that sufficiently clearly in their rearview mirror as they drive forward. As far as ethnic and religious communities living in secular amity with one another, this would be the first place this would ever happen. The whole world will have its eyes on them. There will be a substantial international force here. They will have the Four Freedoms of Franklin Roosevelt written into the Iraqi constitution. It's not like they're going to be handed the keys to the car and told to drive off. There will be a lot of support factors that should make it harder for them to go off the road. They will be independent with a lot of help from their friends. With that plus an economy that gradually becomes stronger, I believe they will be able to stagger along. There would be enough factors there saying, "A little more to the left, a little more to the right. Are you sure this is wise? Yes, you are independent, but ...". A lot of people, not just the U.S., will be having a say and an interest in Iraqi affairs. This will be a benevolent one. This will head off fender benders.
This is why we moved away from elections in 2005. We have caught the pulse of the acceleration of events here in Iraq and responded sensitively, perceptively, to it, and we prevented a problem from arising that otherwise would have been -- not a General Maude problem [British general who captured Baghdad in 1917, then faced Iraqi tribal rebellion against British rule], but a further delay would have widened the distance between us and the Shiites. That is something that really must not happen. In the coming months there is going to be the mother of all caucusing -- the engineers union, the chamber of commerce, they are all going to be canvassed for: Who are your leaders? Begin to think about your future. What kind of state do you want? Because at some point you are going to have to choose a delegate. We are vigorously going through all segments of Iraqi society: Who will be your leader? Who speaks for you? It's not elected, but it will be selected. There they are, and wow, that's going to be a very effervescent time in Iraqi politics. We are out there working hard to get the Iraqis to come up with truly representative groups of reps who can express their viewpoints at the governing level. It will be an interesting experiment.Get away from Najaf, and you find that Shiites are religious, but you can see them living lives in the modern world just the same. The Shiite and Kurdish areas in Iraq are the most peaceful, and in the Shiite areas we are welcomed not just because we liberated but because of who we are. Many people say, "The kind of state you have, we would like to have ourselves." And insofar as the future state is colored by the kinds of people that I have met and worked with, that other Americans have worked with, its tone is one that's compatible with stability and a modicum of democracy.
I have met a number of Shiite clerics, and they are impressive. Some of the grand ayatollahs are straightforward exponents of democracy -- not Shiite democracy, but democracy, emphatically so, and they are extraordinarily tolerant. When it comes to their points of view, they do seem to be democrats, and some of the Shia leaders I have met in Baghdad are the same, and there is enough commonality between their views to give me reason to be hopeful as to what will happen when these people are left on their own to some degree, without a CPA context.
If Iraq succeeds, it could help pull the Arab world out of a great dismal swamp that it's been stuck in for the last 50 years. Iraq could be the turning of the tide. It could be opening a new front. It could be getting away from the millstone of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It could remove the greatest impediment for the Arab-Muslim world to join the modern world. And if moderate Shiites can show that they and Sunnis and Christians, as a sidebar ornament, can make it in a modern state, all the more reason for some of these dictatorial states who purport to treat everybody all right, but if your church steeple falls, don't hope you get a building permit to rebuild it. It's going to cause changes there too. People talk about the Islamic extremists wending their way to Iraq to make trouble for the coalition. But we will help to reconcile not just Iraq but Islam to the modern world.
The Shiite clerics are much more intellectually flexible and open and attuned to modernity, much less bogged down in the uncreative, constantly repetitive view of theology, religion, and the world. The grand ayatollahs incomparably have been the most intellectually open Muslim thinkers that I have met -- having sought out clerics because, as a Presbyterian elder, I am interested in Islam. This is our sister religion; why is it not performing better? But for me, it has been one of the most liberating and uplifting experiences finally to talk to Muslim thinkers who had arrived at the same destination that I had in entirely different ways. We had parted ways in the Middle Ages. They had gone one direction, we had gone another, and yet on matters that really mattered, on faith and morals and politics, we found ourselves at pretty much the same place today. I thought, "My God, it's not Saudi Arabia." The happiest discussions I have had in the Muslim world have been in Iraq.
