Issues related to the future of democracy in Iraq and the role of religious leaders on the one hand and foreign powers on the other hand cannot be analyzed without taking the historical background of the Iraqi nation into consideration. Iranians and other Muslim nations should observe Iraq in this manner.

1. The Shia religious authorities in Iraq have always defended the rights of the Iraqi people against tyrants and foreign agents due to their strong ties with the underprivileged strata of society and intellectuals.

In the year 1928, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Abul-Hasan Isfahani protested when Iraqi King Malek Faisal I issued an order preventing ships carrying religious pilgrims from crossing the Euphrates River. He asked the king to reverse his decision and apologize to the people. When the king went to the Shrine of Imam Ali (AS) in Najaf to apologize to him, Ayatollah Isfahani refused to meet him.

In 1920, Shia scholars such as Sheikh Mohammad Hussein Kashef al-Qata and Seyyed Mohsen Hakim, in the revolution known as Thowrat al-Tishrin, fought the British occupiers and forced them to leave southern Iraq.

Sheikh Mohammad Hassan Kashef al-Qata was the first religious authority to forbid Palestinians and other Muslims from selling any type of property to Jews because of his understanding of Zionist policies.

Ayatollah Mohsen Hakim issued a decree in 1958 which prohibited Iraqi military forces from harassing Muslim citizens of Iraq and touching their property which proved to be effective.

In 1979, Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Baqer Sadr led the protests of Iraqi combatant clergymen against Iraq’s Baath Party dictatorship, which resulted in the arrest and martyrdom of Sadr and his sister Bent al-Hoda.

2. Tyrants and foreign occupiers have always regarded Iraq’s combatant and aware religious authorities as the greatest challenge to their power and have always tried to separate them from the people in order to stay in power.

During the years in which the Ottoman Empire and the British competed for control of Iraq, each tried to establish a dictatorship in the country. The Ottomans, who never believed in voting or taking the people’s views into consideration, made relentless efforts to break up the unity of Shia society, and, by associating the Iraqi Shias with Iran, thereby prevent them from gaining power.

The British, who ended the 600-year-old Ottoman Empire in 1918 and took control of Iraq, were smart enough not to repeat the mistakes of the former occupiers. By setting up a number of apparently democratic institutions and bringing new concepts to Iraq, such as a senate and a national council, the occupiers tried to establish a method to rule the country.

Later, in 1963, the United States entered the political scene of Iraq. Their intention was to appoint a Baath dictator in Iraq in a coup d'état against the government of Abdul Karim Qassem.

3. The current political scene in Iraq is a repetition of these two opposites: the aware Shia clergy who believe in national unity and the power of the people, and the foreign forces who want a secular structure separate from religion.

A general analysis shows that Ayatollah Sistani is a serious player who is insisting that the people participate in choosing transitional national officials and regional authorities. The United States is trying to create a sense of democracy in Iraq by gradually replacing the current U.S. authorities in Iraq with a number of councils, which mostly consist of their own Iraqi agents, in order to pursue U.S. interests rather than defend the values and livelihood of the Iraqi people.

It is obvious that the U.S. occupiers want to establish a foreign democracy in a Muslim land, which is actually the U.S. policy in all Muslim countries. However, freeing itself from the liberating belief of Islam is apparently not enough for U.S. democracy! At the moment the United States of America is using two methods to turn the democratic process in Islamic countries away from the values and intentions of the people and toward the interests of the superpowers.

One way is by creating an excuse for attack, occupation, and regime change. The other is by weakening national values and national pride through political movements, the mass media, and psychological warfare. One can say that all Muslim countries in the world have been targeted through the use of at least one of these techniques. Therefore, the Iraq experience will be interesting for all of us.

U.S. officials cannot use the first method in the case of Iran. They have themselves stated that they have chosen the second method and have invested a large amount of money and publicity in the cultural war against Iran’s religious democracy, which is the most resistant religious democracy in the world and is founded on national support.

Unfortunately, our people are confronted nowadays with some who intentionally or unintentionally seek the assistance of foreign governments to establish democracy instead of referring to the values and history of our people, who have always staunchly resisted foreign domination.

Our people have seen many such examples throughout history and have always resolved these problems through their affinity with the Qur’an, religion, and the clergy.