Delaying Elections is a Time Bomb: Mudarrisi

Wire services report that Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Taqi al-Mudarrisi speculated that the transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30 would cause the guerrilla insurgency to decrease and "maybe disappear."

He followed that bit of optimism with a warning that delaying direct elections unduly was "a time bomb that could explode at any minute."

'"Without elections, our national institutions will remain shaken, unrecognized and distrusted by the people," Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Taqi al-Modaresi said in Karbala, Iraq.'

Mudarrisi has long worried about a "Lebanonization" of Iraq, and has argued for a pluralistic society there. He is the leader of the Organization of Islamic Action, a mostly Karbala-based party that he established in 1979 before being forced by persecution to go to Iran.