Quote Originally Posted by BlueCat
YES exactly and Juan Cole wrote all about that long before the election and the people were asking for the US to let Sistani oversee but they didn't listen....this entire war may have been prevented if they had listened but they had to get their own puppets in.
Putting Sistani in charge would have made a government in which the Shi'ites would be able to impose their religion/will on the Sunnis and Kurds. 60% of the population will have control but the other 40% can't feel that they went from sunni rulers to shi'ite rulers....not to mention a mullah! That dude is old school Islam! Check it out:

Sistani Wants Islam to Be Sole Source of Legislation
Naseer Al-Nahr, Arab News

BAGHDAD, 7 February 2005 ?? Iraq??s Shiite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani and another top cleric yesterday demanded that Islam be the sole source of legislation in the country??s new constitution. Hours later US Vice President Dick Cheney said Iraq has the right to shape its own democracy without becoming ??an Iraqi version of America.?

The national assembly formed after last month??s historic elections is to oversee the drawing up of the new constitution. The role of Islam has been at the heart of months of debate between rival parties and factions as well as the US-led occupation authority which administered Iraq until last June.

Sistani leads the five most important clerics, known as Marja Al-Taqlid, or sources of emulation, who had portrayed a more moderate stance going into the election.

The statement was released by Sheikh Ibrahim Ibrahimi, a representative of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Ishaq Al-Fayad, another of the Marja. ??All of the ulema and Marja, and the majority of the Iraqi people, want the national assembly to make Islam the source of legislation in the permanent constitution and to reject any law that is contrary to Islam,? said the statement.

A source close to Sistani announced soon after the release of the statement that the leader backed the demand. ??We warn officials against a separation of the state and religion, because this is completely rejected by the ulema and Marja and we will accept no compromise on this question,? said Ibrahimi.

US Vice President Cheney told Fox News: ??They will do it their way. They will do it in accordance with their culture and their history and their beliefs and whatever role they decide they want to have for religion in their society. And that??s as it should be.?

Meanwhile, four Egyptians working for a mobile phone company were abducted by gunmen in Baghdad, and militants threatened to kill an Italian journalist by today unless Italy agreed to withdraw its troops.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&sect...d=7&m=2&y=2005

He definately has an agenda but there is 40% of the population that doesn't really care and Shi'ite moderates that will negotiate.
You may think that Sistani in charge would have stopped the war but I really believe that it just would have esculatated tensions with the Kurds and especially the Sunnis.