Article: The real clash.(Impressions)(US administrator says Iraqi people not quite ready for reform)

WHEN AMERICAN administrator L. Paul Bremer III reported to Washington that the Iraqi people were not quite ready for reform, my mind flashed back to one of those British movies set in the 19th century. Typical plot: a colonial governor confronts the powerful nabob who won't play the game the way they teach it at Oxford. He sends an urgent message to London: General election too risky. Stop. Recommend we hold caucuses instead. Stop. Our chaps will vote the way we tell them. Stop. Send money. Stop.

The nabob who has the U.S. worried is Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who, in the polite language of the New York Times, "holds considerable sway over Iraq's Shi'ite ...

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