Sistani was reported to be furious. He instructed his followers not to meet with any of Shahroudi’s representatives. And after Sistani declined to send a representative to the inauguration of the office, ahead of the ayatollah’s arrival from Iran, other Najaf clerics also distanced themselves from Shahroudi, confided one of the robed, white-turbaned religious students who declined to give his name because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Difficult task for Iran
The reaction pointed to the difficulty Iran would confront if it attempts to fill the vacuum left by the departing Americans, despite U.S. and Iraqi concerns that it will do so.
“The Iranians would put their feet in every Iraqi shoe if the Iraqis let them. Religion, politics, everything,” Ebadi said. “But we won’t accept to let them do what they like, and especially here in Najaf.”
“It’s impossible,” agreed businessman Farhan Abu Chich, 57, who is among those who have prospered from Najaf’s renaissance since the Americans arrived. “Iraqis will never fall under influence of either the Iranians or the Arabs.”
In 2003, Chich owned one dingy hotel in the old city, on which he hung a sign in English, Press Hotel, in the hope of luring American guests. The hotel was destroyed in a U.S. airstrike in 2004, but he rebuilt it and instead drew Iranian pilgrims, who have been flooding into Najaf at the rate of 20,000 a day in recent years to pray at the Imam Ali shrine.
He boasts 100 percent year-round occupancy and is building three more hotels. But he pours scorn on those to whom he owes his wealth. Turkey is the biggest investor in Najaf, and local businessmen shun Iranian goods, preferring to do business with Turkey as well as other Asian and European nations, he says.
Chich described a visit in the summer by an Iranian government minister, who he said appealed unsuccessfully to a gathering of Najafi businessmen to spend more of the profits they earn from Iranian pilgrims on buying Iranian products.
“We told him, frankly, you don’t have what we need,” Chich recalled. “There’s a problem with goods from Iran. They are part of the Third World.’’
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