Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani: "Selling foodstuffs to the Occupying Powers is not permitted."
Juan Cole has this covered thoroughly. It's hardly big news in America, where our sporting events (like the Indy 500 today) feature reverent celebrations of troops and endless war for freedom, complete with awesome jet flyovers. But the Shiite clerics are balking at the U.S. conception of "freedom" in the the long-term "military cooperation agreement within a framework of strategic friendship and cooperation" set to be signed between the U.S. and the Iraqi government in about two months.
If you do not read Juan Cole, it is hard to find the news. According to Cole, a report concerning a Thursday meeting of Sistani and Iraqi P.M. Nouri al-Maliki had Sistani reiterating that the agreement with "the U.S. occupiers" would happen over his dead body. Time magazine does have something substantive today about a
not-so-subtle warning by Sistani to Maliki and American leaders as they negotiate a long-term bilateral agreement that will spell out conditions for a U.S. presence in Iraq beyond next year, when the current U.N. mandate ends. A number of contentious issues, such as the presence of permanent U.S. military bases and the ability of U.S. forces to arrest and detain Iraqis, remain unresolved.With all the solemn talk this Memorial Day weekend about the sacrifices made by U.S. troops for our "freedom," no one seems to be asking when this war is going to end and how the people of Iraq are ever going to be free of us.
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