In the struggle to transform Iraq from a dictatorship to a democracy after the American-led invasion in 2003, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the highest spiritual authority for many of the world’s Shiite Muslims, stood out as a singular champion of the effort to hold direct elections and ensure that politicians, and not clerics, rule the country. In doing so, he shaped the relationship between religion and politics here as distinctly different from the Shiite theocracy in Iran , where another ayatollah wields supreme power. Now, in the face of concerns over the growing power of Iran and its militia proxies amid a sectarian war in Iraq , Ayatollah Sistani has made one of his biggest interventions in Iraqi politics, to […]