Yet, here is his administration sounding sanguine about the sweeping electoral win of the slate blessed by Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. It is saying he won't establish mullahcracy in Iraq. 

It doesn't know that. It is only hoping so. Only a handful of people know what Sistani really wants. 

He won't allow any American near his home in Najaf, let alone take a phone call from Bush.

The ayatollah does not give speeches, or deliver Friday sermons. He rarely leaves his abode. He issues few statements and fewer fatwas. The latter tend to be metaphysical.

Americans are from one planet, ayatollahs from another. The latter live a simple life, eating mostly rice, yoghurt and honey. Calm, serene and unhurried, they live long. The four I have interviewed or observed at close quarters were in their 80s and 90s, and in fine form.

With the exception of Ayatollah Khomeini, who spoke with Bush-like bombast, senior Shiite clerics tend to be hermeneutical, leaving a trail of many meanings. They speak allegorically and take their time making a point, if they are making one.

Americans don't have the training or the patience for any of that, even if they can sit cross-legged on a carpeted floor for long stretches.

Bush first tried to install the secular Ahmad Chalabi as Iraqi strongman. When that failed, he settled for another bully, Iyad Allawi.

He resisted direct elections for fear that the "wrong people" would win. He allowed the vote only when he could no longer avoid it.

Now he must live with what's being called the electoral equivalent of the "Sistani tsunami."

What does the ayatollah want? It helps to know that he is a pragmatist who manoeuvres through the labyrinth of power and decision-making.

In April, 2003, when the invading American and British forces were hesitating to enter Najaf and Basra, he sent word that residents offer no resistance. But he did not extend a welcome. 

His refusal to see American envoys is his way of not endorsing the occupation. Similarly, he did not see an official Iranian delegation, lest it be seen as a nod to Tehran's interference.

While he blessed the wide-ranging Shiite coalition for the election, he never did formally endorse the slate. But he did not object to candidates waving his picture, and win by association.

What he did call for, clearly, was for the faithful to vote. They did in droves, risking their lives. 

He opposes the Iranian model, specifically the Khomeini concept of vilayat-e-faghih, supreme spiritual leader. He does not want clerics to run the government. That does not mean he is seeking a secular state. He wants an Islamic democracy.

When he compromised last year to have the interim constitution list Islam as a, rather than the, source of law, he also insisted that no law "contradict the universally agreed tenets of Islam."

He will be intimately involved in the writing of the permanent constitution. It remains to be seen where he comes down between the growing chorus of conservatives wanting old-style sharia and secularists who insist on retaining civil law.

On women, he has been liberal, even if he won't shake their hands. He urged them to vote, even if that meant ignoring the dictates of their menfolk. Nearly a third on his slate are women.

An accommodationist with the Sunni, Kurdish and other minorities, he will do his utmost to avoid a civil war.