Our $200 billion ayatolla - al-Sistani

Our $200 Billion Ayatollah: Having expended 1,400 American lives and 200 billion clams to replace Saddam Hussein with the Grand Ayatollah Sistani, I figure it it behooves us to learn more about our new man in Baghdad. So, I turned once again to the indispensable Sistani.Org website, where under his "Biography" I found this paragraph, to pick one largely at random:

"His Scientific Genius :
Ayatullah Sistani is one of a few students who had the degree of Ijtihad. He is known for his intelligence and plentiful researching activities in biographies. He is also well-acquainted with many theories on many scientific subjects of Hawzah. Ayatullah Sistani had been involved in scientific competition with martyr Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr... It is worthy to say that up to that date, Ayatullah Khou'i had never certificated any of his students' knowledge or Ijtihad, except for Ayatullah Sistani and Ayatullah shaykh Ali Falsafi (an eminent `alim in the Hawzah of Mashhad. On the other hand, the famous `Allamah shaykh Agha Buzurg Tehrani wrote a letter to Ayatullah Sistani in 1960 in which he eulogizing him for his intellectual talents on biography and hadith. This means that, our master, Ayatullah Sistani, had been granted his high scientific rank when he was only thirty-one years old."

Well, I'm feeling better already. Obviously, Sistani comes from a cultural tradition very similar to our own, with an identical conception of science, a culture which we shall no trouble understanding.

Seriously, Sistani is, by all accounts, the most sensible mullah in Iraq, but why are we celebrating our handing Iraq over to a Muslim fundamentalist? I thought this whole War on Terror was intended to weaken Muslim fundamentalists, not give them a few trillion dollars worth of oil reserves to play with.

Hey, I'm glad we held an election and the Grand Ayatollah won. By Iraqi standards, such as they are, he sounds like George Washington. So, can we leave now?