A modern kind of guy.(Devil in the Details)

WHAT DO WE KNOW about the mysterious Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani? Well, he's a democrat--for now, anyway, supporting speedy elections in Iraq, much to the chagrin of U.S. officials who were hoping to use their own team, the Iraqi National Congress, to set up a government. Al-Sistani won't have it, though. He wants all Iraqis to be able to vote--and not in the caucuses recently proposed by U.S. officials as a compromise. (How he'll feel about democracy once he has power is another question.)

So what else? The 73-year-old spiritual leader may be the "pre-eminent ...

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