GRAND AYATOLLAH ALI AL-SISTANI: Sistani is the leading Shiite cleric in Iraq. Despite staying out of day-to-day politics, he has been the most influential leader in the country: all major Shia leaders have sought his approval or guidance. Sistani has encouraged a unified Shia bloc with moderated aims within a unified Iraq. Sistani's influence may be waning, as his words have not succeeded in preventing intra-Shia violence or retaliation against Sunnis.
ABDUL AZIZ AL-HAKIM: Hakim is a cleric and the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the largest and most organized Shia political party. It seeks the creation of an autonomous Shia region comprising nine provinces in the south. Hakim has consistently protected and advanced his party's position. SCIRI has close ties with Iran.
MOQTADA AL-SADR: Sadr has a large following among impoverished Shia, particularly in Baghdad. He has joined Maliki's governing coalition, but his Mahdi Army has clashed with the Badr Brigades, as well as with Iraqi, U.S., and U.K. forces. Sadr claims to be an Iraqi nationalist. Several observers remarked to us that Sadr was following the model of Hezbollah in Lebanon: building a political party that controls basic services within the government and an armed militia outside of the government.
Sunni Arabs feel displaced because of the loss of their traditional position of power in Iraq. They are torn, unsure whether to seek their aims through political participation or through violent insurgency. They remain angry about U.S. decisions to dissolve Iraqi security forces and to pursue the "de-Baathification" of Iraq's government and society. Sunnis are confronted by paradoxes: they have opposed the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq but need those forces to protect them against Shia militias; they chafe at being governed by a majority Shia administration but reject a federal, decentralized Iraq and do not see a Sunni autonomous region as feasible for themselves.
Hashimi and Dhari
The influence of Sunni Arab politicians in the government is questionable. The leadership of the Sunni Arab insurgency is murky, but the following two key Sunni Arab figures have broad support.
tariq al-hashimi: Hashimi is one of two vice presidents of Iraq and the head of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest Sunni Muslim bloc in parliament. Hashimi opposes the formation of autonomous regions and has advocated the distribution of oil revenues based on population, a reversal of de-Baathification, and the removal of Shiite militia fighters from the Iraqi security forces. Shiite death squads have recently killed three of his siblings.
sheik harith al-dhari: Dhari is the head of the Muslim Scholars Association, the most influential Sunni organization in Iraq. Dhari has condemned the American occupation and spoken out against the Iraqi government. His organization has ties both to the Sunni Arab insurgency and to Sunnis within the Iraqi government. A warrant was recently issued for his arrest for inciting violence and terrorism, an act that sparked bitter Sunni protests across Iraq.
Iraqi Kurds have succeeded in presenting a united front of two main political blocs—the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The Kurds have secured a largely autonomous Kurdish region in the north, and have achieved a prominent role for Kurds within the national government. Barzani leads the Kurdish regional government, and Talabani is president of Iraq.
Leading Kurdish politicians told us they preferred to be within a democratic, federal Iraqi state because an independent Kurdistan would be surrounded by hostile neighbors. However, a majority of Kurds favor independence. The Kurds have their own security forces—the peshmerga—which number roughly 100,000. They believe they could accommodate themselves to either a unified or a fractured Iraq.