"He believes [Sunnis] are a part of Iraq, and a very important part," Rubaii said.
More than altruism, legitimacy may be the reason for such a calculation. Rubaii said the clergy consider the election to have delivered the government legitimacy among Iraqis and around the world -- but not in the Middle East, where Iraq's Sunni Arab neighbors have watched with trepidation as Iraq's Sunnis become marginalized.
Ashraf Qazi, a U.N. envoy in Iraq, met last week with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who viewed elections as a way to deliver legitimacy to the government.
(Alaa Al-marjani -- AP)
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There remains as well a deep, if not always publicly stated, suspicion of American intentions. Some clerics see the U.S.-backed transitional law that serves as an interim constitution as a way of denying Shiites their power as a majority. Under the law, some crucial decisions require a two-thirds vote or unanimity within a three-member presidential council.
To break an impasse that Rubaii described as a crisis, several clerics said they would be cautious -- to a point.
"There is a determination not to intervene in the present stage unless it becomes a necessity," said Ali Najafi, the son of Bashir Najafi, another of the four senior ayatollahs, whose office is within walking distance of the headquarters of the others.
But some suggested a more forceful posture was in the offing.
"The political crisis will continue, and the result will perhaps be that Shiites will use the weapon of millions protesting," said Mohammed Taqi Mudarassi, a senior ayatollah based in Karbala, Iraq's other sacred Shiite city. "The street only needs a match."
Mudarassi said he was not necessarily calling for protests. But he suggested that the Shiite majority should take matters into its own hands: Discard the transitional law and name a government on its own.
"It's a scenario that's better than violence," he said.
Hakim and Rubaii, the spokesmen for two other ayatollahs, said it was not yet time for a demonstration, fearing it could spiral out of control. The last mass protests were organized in January 2004 in Baghdad and Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, when the Shiite clergy and religious parties were pushing the U.S. occupation to organize elections to choose a government.
"This will mark the last stage," Hakim said. "People will impose their will directly."
The debate, though, demonstrates the confidence the clergy have in their ability to direct popular sentiments and in their own capacity to step in at decisive moments in the political process.
As precedents for when to intervene, clerics pointed to several seminal moments since Hussein's fall two years ago: the call for an elected body to write the constitution in 2003, the demand for elections and intervention between Sadr's forces and U.S. troops fighting in Najaf in 2004, and the rejection of calls this year for a delay in the Jan. 30 vote. Shubari, the editor, said Sistani intervened, as well, when the Shiite coalition was deadlocked in February over choosing its candidate for prime minister.
Those steps represent a far more aggressive role than popularly envisioned when Sistani declared soon after the U.S. occupation began that religious scholars should refrain from direct participation in government.
Many clerics, though, say the clergy's interventions over the past two years do not transgress that edict. To them, they still fall under the rubric of a phrase heard often in Najaf's seminaries and clerical offices: irshad wa tawjeeh, guidance and direction, a pliable principle that may serve as the groundwork for a uniquely Iraqi relationship between religion and state.
Rubaii insisted that only three clerics were elected to parliament: Ahmed Safi, Ali Abdel-Hakim Safi and Habib Khatib. Those clerics, he said, were ordered to take part in the parliamentary committee that draws up the constitution and no more. He said other clerics in parliament, such as Abdul Aziz Hakim and Jalaledin Saghir, are first and foremost considered politicians by virtue of their involvement in the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of Iraq's most powerful Shiite parties.
A point Rubaii made clear and others hinted at was the necessity that members of the clergy feel in avoiding the example of neighboring Iran, where the standing of respected clerics diminished as they seized government and were blamed for its failings over 25 years. To Rubaii, Iraq can have the best of both worlds: a clergy that retains its stature while playing a decisive role.
"This is the main reason that the clergy is prohibited from taking posts in the government," he said. "If not, any mistake committed by the government would be blamed on the clergy."
