US embassy cable - 05PARIS7745

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 007745 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/7/2015 
TAGS: PREL, PTER, PGOV, PINR, IR, IZ, FR 
SUBJECT: FRENCH-IRAQI RESEARCHER DESCRIBES RECENT RAMADAN 
VISIT TO QOM, CONTACTS WITH SISTANI REPRESENTATIVES 
 
REF: PARIS 7675 
 
Classified By: Political Minister-Counselor Josiah Rosenblatt, reasons 
1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
1. (C) Summary: A local French-Iraqi anthropologist, Hosham 
Dawod (protect), briefed us on a recent visit to Qom, Iran, 
reportedly at the invitation of supporters of Ayatollah 
Sistani.  Dawod, who is a former IVLP participant and an 
expert on Iraqi tribes and Shi'ism, told us he spent 12 days 
in Qom as the guest of Sayyid Jawad Sharistani, an in-law of 
Ayatollah Sistani, who reportedly acts as a go-between 
Sistani and the senior Iranian leadership.  Dawod described 
Ayatollah Sistani as having a large clerical base of support 
in Qom, and attracting more popular support in Qom than 
partisans of Supreme Leader Khamenei.  Dawod described an 
intense internal debate and shifting rivalries in the wake of 
Iran's recent presidential election, based on what he 
observed in Qom.  Dawod viewed Supreme Leader Khamenei's 
influence as weakened by supporters of Iranian President 
Ahmadinejad, whom he described as a follower of rival, 
hard-line Qom-based Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi.  At the same 
time, Dawod described a negative popular reaction in Qom to 
President Ahmadinejad's threats "to wipe Israel off the map," 
which were viewed locally as contributing to Iran's 
isolation.  Dawod asserted that VOA appeared to be a 
preferred source of news for the Iranians he met in Qom, and 
that VOA could be an important tool in persuading the Iranian 
public that intransigence on the nuclear issue would only 
further Iran's isolation and erode modest openings secured in 
recent years.  End summary. 
 
2. (C) Poloff met recently with French-Iraqi anthropologist 
Hosham Dawod, upon his return from a 12-day visit to Qom, 
Iran.  (Comment: Dawod is an established embassy contact and 
a noted French expert on Iraqi tribes and Shi'ism, based at 
the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). 
He fled Iraq under Saddam's regime as a teenager, before 
eventually settling and pursuing graduate studies in France, 
where he obtained French nationality.  He is a Shi'a Kurd, 
secular and left-leaning in outlook, and does not appear to 
support a particular political camp in Iraq.  Dawod 
participated in an IVLP program to the U.S. in April 2005. 
End comment.)  Dawod reported that he visited Iran at the 
invitation of Jawad Sharistani, whom he described as a 
Qom-based representative and in-law of Ayatollah Sistani. 
Dawod described Jawad as a cousin of Iraqi National Assembly 
Deputy Speaker Husayn al-Sharistani but more important than 
his Iraq-based cousin, given Jawad's reported access to the 
highest levels of the Iranian leadership, including Supreme 
Leader Khamenei.  Dawod told us he established contact with 
Jawad Sharistani during a research trip to Mecca during the 
hajj season earlier this year, and that Sistani's camp had 
expressed appreciation for Dawod's writings on Iraq.  Dawod 
told us that during the Qom visit, Sharistani asked him to 
pursue a documentary project on Ayatollah Sistani, for which 
he offered Dawod access to Sistani's archives and family 
members as well as an interview with Sistani himself in Iraq. 
 Dawod accepted the offer, which he described as a "coup" 
from a research perspective. 
 
3. (C) Dawod described Sistani as having a large base of 
clerical support in Qom, larger than its counterpart in Iraq; 
he asserted that Sistani had some 1,300 "wakils" or official 
representatives in Iran, compared to a dozen or so in Iraq. 
Dawod described the Ramadan iftars hosted by Sistani's 
supporters in Qom as packed and better attended than those 
organized by supporters of Supreme Leader Khamenei, and 
concluded that Sistani had more popular support in Qom.  He 
noted that Sistani's supporters were careful not to create a 
sense of rivalry with Iranian authorities, who were also 
constrained to remain hospitable to Sistani's base in Qom, 
despite the obvious sense of competition between Najaf and 
Qom for theological preeminence.  At the same time, Dawod 
described Jawad Sharistani and other Qom-based Sistani 
supporters as deeply concerned by the depth of Iranian 
infiltration in Iraq and Iranian influence among leading Iraq 
Shi'a parties in Iraq, which Dawod speculated could generate 
friction between Sistani and the SCIRI and Dawa parties after 
December elections. 
 
4. (C) Dawod said that throughout his visit to Qom, he sensed 
an intense internal debate taking place in the wake of 
election of President Ahmadinejad.  Dawod described Supreme 
Leader Khamenei as weakened by Ahmadenijad's election, and 
cited Ahmadinejad's allegiance to rival, hard-line Qom-based 
Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi.  Dawod stressed that although 
Ahmadinejad continued to publicly pay deference to Khamenei, 
the Iranian president and his leading appointees, including 
FM Motaki and Supreme National Security Council Chief Ali 
Larijani, were "graduates" of Mesbah's religious institute in 
Qom.  According to Dawod, although Mesbah had played a key 
role in drafting a theological argument for Khamenei's 
succession of Ayatollah Khomeini, some of his supporters in 
Qom were calling for Iran to have a younger Supreme Leader. 
Dawod opined that internal rivalries were driving shifting 
alliances in Iran, such as Khamenei's undermining, and more 
recent rehabilitation of former Iranian president Rafsanjani. 
 Dawod cited the recent recall of Iranian ambassador to Paris 
Sadegh Kharazi (reftel), noting that the envoy's relations by 
marriage to Khamenei could not protect him from being swept 
aside in Ahmedinejad's wholesale dismissals of Iran's 
overseas representatives. 
 
5. (C) Dawod described a negative reaction in Qom to 
President Ahmedinejad's public threats to "wipe Israel off 
the map," which he said most of his Iranian interlocutors 
viewed as likely to push Iran into further isolation.  Dawod 
said one young Iranian asked him in jest why the U.S. 
couldn't use its satellite communications to find the fabled 
"hidden imam," which would mean that Iran's theocratic regime 
would have to step down.  Dawod observed that "every taxi 
driver" he met and most other Iranians with whom he spoke in 
Qom relied on Farsi-language VOA as a preferred source of 
news.  He commented that radio was a much more effective news 
medium than television in Iran, since most Iranians he met 
dismissed state TV entirely.  Dawod concluded that despite 
Qom's reputation as a theocratic foothold, citizens displayed 
a surprising degree of openness; for example, he observed 
single, casually veiled women smoking shisha in cafes in Qom, 
an unthinkable act in neighboring Iraq.  Dawod concluded that 
despite Iran's domestic problems, Iranians, particularly 
young people, had been able to carve out some openings in the 
past 10 years -- breathing room which they would not want to 
give up.  He opined that VOA could be a useful tool in 
persuading the Iranian public that further intransigence on 
the nuclear issue would mean forfeiting the openings achieved 
in recent years; in Dawod's view, no one in Iran, except 
perhaps a hard-line minority, wanted to return to the 
isolation of 1979. 
 
6. (C) Comment:  We view Dawod as a reliable interlocutor and 
hope his observations are of some use to Iran and Iraq 
watchers in Washington.  Dawod's observations on an internal 
debate in Iran track with what we have heard from the MFA 
(reftel), but he does not share the MFA's cautious approach 
against isolating Iran.  End comment. 
 
Please visit Paris' Classified Website at: 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm 
Hofmann