September 2, 2003	Tuesday	Rajab 4, 1424

TEHRAN: Ayatollah Syed Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim may not have espoused an Iranian-style revolution in Iraq, but Iran lost a sympathetic ear that will be difficult to replace when the Iraqi Shia leader was killed last week.

Analysts said Hakim, whose ties with Tehran were nurtured in more than 20 years of exile in Iran, was viewed as a key ally during the US-led reconstruction of Iraq.

These close ties, allied with Hakim’s moderate views and his cautious cooperation with the United States, may have been seen by Tehran as helping ensure the emerging government in Iraq was not hostile to Iran, they said.

Iran, already facing US charges of meddling in Iraq, has few other ways of putting its case for amicable ties with post-Saddam Iraq.

“It was like having a friend and sympathizer in a position of power in a neighbouring country. Whereas now, it (Iran) has to start all over again,” said Shirzad Bozorgmehr, managing editor of the daily Iran News.

Hakim, killed by a car bomb on Friday in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf, boasted Islamic learning and views that echoed the Islamic Republic’s mix of politics and religion, but he also had political clout, a combination difficult to match.

Iran, predominantly Shias like 60 per cent of Iraq’s population, blamed US-led security failures for his death and is holding three days of mourning.

Hakim’s brother, Abdel-Aziz, who also has close ties with Iran and who sits on the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, is seen as a likely successor as head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).

INFLUENCING NAJAF: But analysts said his lesser religious credentials meant he might not carry the same weight as his brother in the seminaries of Najaf. The ancient Iraqi centre of Shia learning has traditionally supported a less political role for clerics than that espoused by its younger Iranian counterpart in Qom.

“Hakim had the religious credentials and the political acumen...Abdel Aziz will not have the same following in Najaf,” said one diplomat.

He said this could worry Iran if the debate about clerical rule, the basis of Iran’s political system, gathers momentum in Najaf. Hakim may have proved a better advocate of Iran’s view.

Analysts said that in the early 1980s, during his early days in Iran, Hakim styled himself Iraq’s answer to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

But recently his views had moderated. Despite SCIRI’s revolutionary name, Hakim said in Tehran in April, shortly before returning to Iraq: “We should not make a copy of the Iranian revolution and establish it in Iraq.”

Critics have suggested Hakim may have been trying to appeal to the Western occupiers of Iraq rather than expressing a deeply held belief.

Others said the statement reflected a pragmatic approach — that despite its Shia majority, Iraq needed a broad-based government to keep it united — and was also an admission that Iranian-style clerical rule would not get US approval.

This chimed with the view in Iran that a stable government in Baghdad — a priority for Tehran after its eight-year war with Saddam’s Iraq in the 1980s — would have to reflect Iraq’s ethnic and religious mix.

Some diplomats in Tehran said Hakim’s cautious cooperation with the United States may have ruffled feathers in Iran, a staunch opponent of the US-led occupation although Tehran welcomed the fall of President Saddam Hussein.

Others said the United States and Iran found in Hakim a rare point of policy agreement — that he could play a vital role in rebuilding the country, even if their motives differed.

“The bombing in Najaf is against Iranian interests...and it is also against US interests,” said Abbas Maleki, a former Iranian deputy foreign minister.—Reuters