Democracy's push, theocracy's pull












One Shiite cleric who was working with the US, Abdul Majid Khoei, was murdered in Najaf earlier this month after returning to the country from exile in London. In retrospect this seems a sign of the turmoil to come.

Kept down by history and Saddam, the Shiites were bound to erupt, says Akbar Ahmed of American University. "The centrifugal forces have been released," he says. "If there is a democracy in Iraq ... the president will be Shia."

Furthermore, if Shiites do dominate the government, they might propose some sort of federation with Iran, Mr. Ahmed says. The result would be twin pillars of Shiite Islam - a nightmare for Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, and other Sunni-dominated states.

Iraq's neighbors are indeed watching the rise of the Shiites with trepidation, say sources in the region. Many worry that if the US is not careful, religious extremism could spread from the Israeli-occupied territories through Lebanon and the Gulf states, and into Syria and Jordan.

"The worry is there. We would be as displeased as the Americans," says a Jordanian government official.

But there are many reasons to believe that the current demonstrations do not reflect the full will of Iraq's Shiites, say experts.

Many Shiites in the country are followers of clerics who call for separation of "church and state" - though many others are indeed influenced by the Tehran-based Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, an exile group that has resisted US entreaties.

Furthermore, Iraqi Shiites are largely Arabs, while Iranians are Persians. And many are nationalistic enough to have fought without rebelling in Hussein's brutal war with Iran.

"Some Shiite leaders question whether Western democratic values are right for Iraq," says a Western diplomat in Jordan. "But the Shiites are not a unified group, and others have expressed openness to democracy."

FOR the short run, the US will probably try ensure that Iraq's government is a tripartite Shiite-Sunni-Kurd arrangement that allows all a measure of freedom, as in a federation. For the long run, the US is counting on the experience of sharing power, and the power of education, to accustom Iraqis to democracy instead of theocracy.

But if such civic life is seen by others in the region as being imposed on Iraq, the consequences could be very negative. The result could be further radicalization of Islamist groups, as is happening to some extent in Pakistan in response to the US expulsion of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

"The clock is ticking, and the Americans have to quickly transfer power to the Iraqi people," said Jordan's King Abdullah in a broadcast interview on Tuesday. "The US has only once chance to get it right and win the peace."

Danna Harman in Amman, Jordan, and Jane Lampman in Boston contributed to this report.

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