This is not the first time, the Saudis insult Sis­tani, but this time the con­dem­na­tions involved the Iraqi gov­ern­ment, includ­ing Maliki him­self, who attacked the Saudi reli­gious insti­tu­tions (and today even Tal­a­bani put him­self in this reli­gious row, send­ing a con­dem­na­tion let­ter to the Saudi King).

P.S.

Much worst insults on Sis­tani made by Shi­ite cleric Abdul Majid Al-Khoei who came back to Iraq with the Amer­i­cans, and killed later in Najaf (Ara­bic MP3).

The clue is revealed by Azza­man today saying:

Riyadh refused medi­a­tion attempts made by the Egypt­ian Pres­i­dent Hosni Mubarak to accept Maliki’s visit to Saudi Ara­bia. A Saudi source said that the Saudi cleric [who attacked Sis­tani] rep­re­sents him­self only.

The source is sur­prised with Maliki’s involve­ment in the con­dem­na­tions, there are [Shi­ite] reli­gious extrem­ists attack­ing Saudi Ara­bia and Saudi cler­ics also, while Saudi Ara­bia is not hold­ing Maliki accountable.

In the same speech in Najaf, Maliki revealed that there are efforts (blessed by the Supreme cler­ics) to unify the “State of Law” and INA, which will take the for­ma­tions of the sec­tar­ian quo­tas back to the start point (accord­ing to Azza­man in the above link).

With the Sadrists rejec­tion to any kind of uni­fi­ca­tion, coop­er­a­tion or coor­di­na­tion with Maliki’s “State of Law”, I guess this a maneu­ver from Maliki to split those who sup­port the “Elec­toral Con­duct Law”.

Maliki’s “uni­fi­ca­tion” con­di­tion with INA (or to pres­sure Ammar Al-Hakim) is: No nego­ti­a­tions with the Ba’athists or those who are linked with the Ba’ath Party” (wel­comed by Najaf gov­er­nor, who called for an Anti-Ba’ath Party national conference).

In two inter­views with dif­fer­ent satel­lite TV chan­nels in one week (1, 2), Ammar al-Hakim, repeated his “new” posi­tion of talk­ing to Baath Party, and he even talked about allow­ing the Baathists to par­tic­i­pate in the polit­i­cal process.

Direct reac­tion from the Sadrists MPs in the par­lia­ment saying:

Any talks and meet­ings with the Baath Party is a “moral crime” and “con­sti­tu­tion vio­la­tion” (the only thing Maliki and the Sadrists agree about).

And lets not for­get that there is an Iraqi rec­on­cil­i­a­tion del­e­ga­tion in Dam­as­cus to talk with the Iraqi oppo­si­tion and for­mer Iraqi army offi­cers, as revealed by the Syr­ian news­pa­per Al-Watan. These claims of talk­ing with the oppo­si­tion are denied by the house speaker Ayad Al-Samarai say­ing that the del­e­ga­tion is not autho­rized to talk to the opposition.

My own information

The del­e­ga­tion will tour the Arab coun­tries to meet with oppo­si­tion and the Baath Party, but sources in Dam­as­cus told me that con­di­tions set by the del­e­ga­tion in advance, which will lead to its failure.