Ali al-Sistani

Shortly after that, in... 2014, no, 2015, I believe.

2014, Ayatollah Sistani signed a fatwa, issued a fatwa authorizing the expansion of the Hashd al-Shaabi, the Shia militias inside Iraq.

2015, 16, somewhere in there, the Iraqi parliament formally incorporated the Hashd al-Shaabi into the Iraqi security forces.

That reminds me, like you said, very much of the Lebanese model where we've got Hezbollah very much embedded within the Lebanese parliament, making decisions, being part of the government policy.

and have some responsibility along with my deputy, Paul Butler, and a couple of others, and the national staff.

We hooked on day one, not to the green zone, not to the donor, not to my headquarters, but to the Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who was basically in the holy cities, Karbala and Najaf, and was Probably one of the wisest people, I would say absolutely the wisest person in the Shia faith that existed.

These are the Shias that were slaughtered regularly by Saddam Hussein.

And we got a fatwa from him.

And posted right there.

I mean, and our only antidote is, was more powerful.

And that was the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and the principles and the faith of the Shia of Islam.

And I hear that stuff in the United States.

They've been, um, the sort of dueling, uh, centers of Shia power for centuries.

Um, with I- Iraq's problems and the, the eclipse o- of Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq, Iran has had the ascendancy.

But, um, Shiism, uh, except for its most militant phase, the IRGC, the Iranian Re- Revolutionary Guard Corps, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has seemed to many analysts to, to be in, in retreat.

The religious leadership in Iran is old, s- kind of sclerotic.

Uh, if they existed in our society, we would move heaven and earth to destroy them.

But isn't there a great risk in destroying them, which is what some people say, which is the reason they didn't go into Najaf and, and, and do as much damage as they could have, and the reason they haven't gone-- they pulled back from Fallujah, and the reason so far, uh, because of the, the warnings of Ayatollah Sistani and others, they haven't done more.

Well, I believe that if the decision is made-

It's a dilemma

He disappeared in Iraq.

Anyway, so basically what we have now is, but every major Shia scholar, or they call it Mujtahid, Sistani, Al-Khoi, Al-Ansari, said Walayat al-Faqih absolutely does not exist in Shia doctrine, in Shia ideology.

So if we can use this to completely undermine the whole legitimacy of .

Nobody did.

There has to be, there has to be a very strong narrative effort.

I can bring you hundreds of Shia, even supporting Iran, not against Iran necessarily, but they will tell you as a Shia doctrine that doesn't exist.

So the holiest site for Shia is in Iraq, right? The Sistani...

Najaf, right?

So the commentaries of the scholars throughout history.

Just like the Shia right now, they compile and they hold to heart the answers of so-called ayatollahs like Sistani, Khamenei, et cetera.

The same thing takes place in Judaism.

The rabbis, uh, they play a very important part in Jewish law.