WASHINGTON: Leading New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote in the newspaper Al-Marje Ad-Dini Ayatullah Sayyed Ali Al-Husseini As-Sistani should be given the Nobel Peace Prize for helping smooth the road toward democracy in the country, while an online petition launched by exiled Iraqi Christians in the US nominating the spiritual leader for the 2005 prestigious prize has drawn up to 34,000 signatures from around the world by Tuesday March 22.
 
Friedman noted that US President George W. Bush's name will likely be bandied about a contender for the prestigious prize, as the democracy takes hold there following legislative elections earlier this year.
 
But, Friedman said, “If some kind of democracy takes root there, it will also be due in large measure to the instincts and directives of the dominant Iraqi Shia communal leader, Ayatullah Sistani.”
 
“It was Mr Sistani who insisted that there had to be a direct national election in Iraq, rejecting the original goofy US proposal for regional caucuses. It was Mr Sistani who insisted that the elections not be postponed in the face of the Baathist-fascist insurgency.”
 
Friedman continued saying it was Ayatullah Sistani who ordered Shias not to retaliate for the Baathist and jihadist attempts to drag them into a civil war by attacking mosques and massacring civilians.
 
Mr Sistani brings to Arab politics a legitimate, pragmatic interpretation of Islam, one that says Islam should inform politics and the constitution, but clerics should not rule, the columnist opined.
 
People - including Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and atheist - from countries ranging from Fiji to Sweden to Saudi Arabia had signed the petition initiated by members of the Organization for Civil Society in Iraq - a group of activists from different Iraqi sects and ethnic groups - and the Iraqi Chaldean community in El Cajon City, Calif., near San Diego.
 
Nobel Peace Prize petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/ocsi2005/petition.html