Ali Sistani

"People are not finding potable water and you're bringing me juice? No."

"It is not permissible for a Muslim to buy products of the countries that are in a state of war with Islam and Muslims, for example, Israel."

"Sistani's office refuses the replacement of the law [which excludes former Baath Party members from returning to public life] because it is not an Iraqi demand but it is a political demand to please some sides."

"Mr. Bremer, you are an American and I am an Iranian. I suggest we leave it up to the Iraqis to devise their constitution."

"The council that will write the constitution should be elected, not hand-picked ... The constitution will be illegal if it is written by a council, whether that is chosen by the Americans or by what is called the Governing Council or by anyone else."

"Iraq — the country identified in American minds with chaos and endless warfare — is a democracy. Citizens vote, and leaders must respond to their demands; otherwise, they won’t be reelected. It’s a deeply flawed democracy, to be sure, as Salih is the first to note. Yet its institutions, created after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, have endured. Iraqis routinely take to the streets to demonstrate. The country’s top religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who acts as an unofficial political arbiter, has persistently supported democratic institutions, as well as serving as a locus of Iraqi nationalism... We can let Iraq succumb entirely to Iranian influence — or we can reengage with the country, showing Iraqis that we stand with them and take their democratic aspirations seriously. There is an opportunity here that we shouldn’t miss."

"I was sleeping in a village near Basra that night ... I saw the villagers grabbing their guns and preparing to rush to Najaf, hundreds of miles away. 'Sistani is under attack,' they told me. That was all they needed to know. The same thing happened all over Iraq."