As Iraqi troops battled Shiite militias last month in the southern city of Basra, Iraq’s most revered Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani was remarkably quiet. This is bad news for Iraq and for the United States. Sistani’s absence at a critical time for the Shiite community highlights how far he has withdrawn from public life and the potential for a dangerous power vacuum in religious leadership as Shiite factions violently compete for influence in Iraq. The United States and Iraqi governments can no longer depend on Sistani as a stabilising force in the Shiite heartland of southern Iraq.

Compare Sistani’s recent performance with his actions in August 2004, when he brokered a cease-fire between the Iraqi government and the militia of renegade cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. That deal averted a United States attack on Shiism’s holiest shrine in the city of Najaf and paved the way for Sadr to join the political process a year later. It was an extraordinary feat by Sistani, who negotiated the deal within two days of returning to Iraq from a hospital in London.

But today Sistani is sitting on the sidelines, and the longer he stays quiet, the more his influence will wane. Sistani’s diminishing clout - and the absence of an apparent successor - will ultimately bolster Sadr, the enfant terrible of Najaf who is working to burnish his religious credentials. In December, Sadr’s aides announced that he is studying to become an ayatollah and is on track to attain that status within two years.

Already, the 33-year-old Sadr has shown disdain for the elder clerics, accusing them of being too acquiescent toward the Americans. Because they shunned direct involvement in politics, Sistani and other scholars created a power vacuum in the Shiite community.

In the Shiite world, it is unusual for a young cleric with Sadr’s modest religious credentials to garner such a wide following. Normally, it can take two decades of study and research for a cleric to become an ayatollah. But he is the only surviving son of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, who was assassinated by the Iraqi regime in 1999.

Sistani was often criticised for remaining silent about Saddam Hussein’s crimes against Shiites. By contrast, the elder Sadr challenged the regime in a series of sermons that

ultimately led to his murder. Sistani and the elder Sadr became rivals in the Shiite religious hierarchy. Despite his lower clerical rank, many of Sadr’s followers look to him as the inheritor of his father’s legacy and are willing to emulate him instead of more senior scholars.

Without Sistani, there is no one with the religious and moral authority to restrain Sadr and other Shiite factions as they battle for control of oil-rich southern Iraq. The recent fighting

in Basra was the latest chapter of a conflict between Sadr and his main rival for dominance of the Shiite heartland: the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, led by a United States and Iranian-backed cleric, Abdulaziz al-Hakim.

Whatever faction ultimately rules Basra will control much of Iraq’s oil and the means of shipping it. Sadr emerged from the latest battle with his militia and reputation intact.

And he got an unexpected boost: a display of Sistani’s waning influence. That can only embolden the young cleric and create new troubles for the United States. — The Christian Science Monitor