In a epistle of March 19, 2004, to ...

In a epistle of March 19, 2004, to Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN's top plenipotentiary to Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Al-Sistani threatened to boycott forthcoming meetings if the UN endorses Iraq's U.S.--backed interim constitution. This gives the presidency to a three-member council compos of a Kurd a Sunni Arab, and a Shiite Arab--thus enshrining, he says, "regionalism and ethnicity in the political