The March 7 election gave a narrow victory to a bloc led by Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite with Sunni backing. But Allawi’s chances of heading the next government were dampened when two major Shiite blocs, one of them overtly religious, struck an alliance after the votes were in.Now Allawi faces a fresh challenge in the shape of Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, the 83-year-old sage who was revered by Sunnis and Shiites alike as a uniter standing above politics, but who is now seen by many as the man who shut out Allawi and brokered the alliance that put the Shiites on top. The apparent shift brings into sharper focus the conflicting visions of Iraq’s future as the US prepares to withdraw its forces from the country next year -- whether it will drift into the orbit of Iran, or take the middle ground by improving relations with Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-led Arab states.
Shiites are the majority in both Iraq and Iran, and the new alliance has positioned religious Shiite parties to maintain their hold on power for four more years and deepen the intertwining of politics and religion in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.
The formalization of the merger was announced just hours after Ammar al-Hakim, one of its leaders, met with al-Sistani in Najaf, the Shiite holy city and base of the so-called marjaiyah, or religious Shiite leadership. Sunnis backed Allawi’s Iraqiya bloc because they wanted a secular, Iraq-focused party to shield them against some Iranian-style form of Shiite clerical rule. They are taking the new Shiite alliance as a slap in the face, and fear Al-Sistani has gone from uniter of Iraq to uniter of its Shiites.
