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By NEELA BANERJEE
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 13 - The United Nations special envoy to Iraq departed Friday, warning that the country faced a significant chance of civil strife, and leaving unresolved the contentious question of holding elections before the June 30 transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis.
The rift over elections has broadened fissures between Iraq's Shiite and Sunni Muslims, a trend that the envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, described as part of a trend of rising communal tensions that pose "very, very serious dangers." Sunni Arabs, a minority that has long ruled Iraq, worry that swift elections could bring the Shiite majority to power and unleash a backlash against them.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered cleric among the Shiites, injected himself into the debate by criticizing an American plan for a caucus system and calling for direct elections.
But after two recent meetings with him, Shiite and Sunni Iraqis representing some of the intellectual and tribal elite came away convinced that the cleric is flexible on the system and timetable of elections.
Moreover, they said, the meetings signal a willingness on the part of Ayatollah Sistani and Sunni leaders to try to thwart sectarian strife, as other politicians and clerics appeal to religion and ethnicity in advancing their demands.
"I am a Sunni," said Sheik Nazar Habib al-Hayzaran, head of the Azza tribe, who attended one meeting. "But I don't think that Sistani represents just the Shia, but that he represents all of Iraq."
At a news conference, Mr. Brahimi said he was heartened that Iraqis themselves were aware of the threat of communal strife. Still, he warned, "Civil wars happen because people are reckless, because people are selfish, because groups think more of themselves than they do of their country."
Rising concerns about civil strife prompted a group of Sunni Arab and Kurdish tribal leaders to meet with Ayatollah Sistani last Saturday to bring his message home to their anxious tribesmen. One of those who attended the meeting, Sheik Ibrahim al-Shawi, the leader of the mostly Sunni Shawi tribe, said some men in his tribe had told him "they would rather be ruled by a foreigner than a Shia."
During a 90-minute meeting at the cleric's home in Najaf, the leaders sat on a carpet and pillows in a large, unadorned room and candidly expressed their worries. When they said their tribesmen feared the possibility of Shiite political hegemony, Ayatollah Sistani said, "God forbid," several people at the meeting recounted.
Ayatollah Sistani "said the Shia are not a single bloc," Mr. Shawi said, "and they couldn't move as a single bloc." Shiites here, Mr. Shawi and others said, run the gamut from Communists to fundamentalists, a fact often ignored in discussions of their potential political might.
The cleric also indicated that he does not favor an Islamic state similar to Iran, a point he reiterated at the meetings, participants said.
"He doesn't want politics," said Ghassan R. al-Atiyyah, the organizer of the meetings and the executive director of the Iraq Foundation for Democracy and Development, a research organization. "He doesn't want any position to be occupied by a turban."
Mr. Atiyyah also led a meeting of academics and intellectuals with Ayatollah Sistani earlier this month, during which the cleric said he was open to a spectrum of electoral compromises that he thought would be better than the American-backed caucus system for choosing a government.
"He is flexible on the dates for general elections, though they should be before the American elections" in November, Mr. Attiyah said. "And any position on elections should be endorsed by the U.N. Security Council."
Whether Ayatollah Sistani communicated such flexibility to Mr. Brahimi remains unknown. The reclusive ayatollah did not comment on the discussions. At the Baghdad news conference, Mr. Brahimi recounted that the cleric "said that he agrees with me that elections cannot be established unless the appropriate circumstances are provided."
An aide to Mr. Brahimi hinted strongly that the June 30 date might be impossibly soon. "The time between now and June is very short, and that makes it unlikely that you can put mechanisms in place," Mr. Brahimi's spokesman, Ahmad Fawzi, told The Associated Press.
Those Sunnis who met with Ayatollah Sistani conceded that they had little time to stanch the fear among their tribesmen over elections.
Others who have met with Ayatollah Sistani have said that he assured them he would consider options other than direct elections. For example, elections could be held on the level of neighborhoods for broader city councils. Those councils, in turn, would select their representatives to the new national assembly.
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