Shiites moving into Iraqi power vacuum

KARBALA, Iraq -- Iraqi Shiites are organizing local committees, doling out funds to pay salaries, collecting looted property and sending militias to secure hospitals and electric plants.

The Shiites are fast filling the power vacuum left by the ouster of Saddam Hussein -- and some fear their dominance of postwar Iraqi politics could lead to an Islamic theocracy like the one next door in Shiite-dominated Iran.

Long repressed under Saddam's Sunni-dominated government and representing 60 percent of Iraq's population of 24 million, the Shiites have divided their religious loyalties between at least three leaders. Yet their opposition to a prolonged U.S. presence on Iraqi soil appears uniform, and some look to Iran as a model.

"The Iranian experience proved to be successful until now and I hope Iraq will be the same," said Naji Abdel-Razzak, a 45-year-old civil servant in Karbala.

Added Kathem al-Nasiri, a cleric from the Hawza seminary in Karbala: "We want to establish an Islamic, Shiite state, the same as what happened in Iran" -- though he doubted the United States would permit that.

Thousands of Shiites demonstrated against the United States in Karbala on Wednesday, carrying banners with messages such as "No to America, no to Israel, yes to Islam." Their brethren recited the final prayers of a fervent religious pilgrimage that dramatized the potential for Shiite power in Iraq.

The pilgrimage to mourn the Prophet Muhammad's grandson was organized by a center of Shiite learning known as the Hawza al-Ilmiya -- the same organization that since Saddam's ouster has been sending out volunteers to guard banks, get power plants back on line and set up checkpoints.

Reports that Iran seeks to influence Iraqi Shiites are setting off alarms in Washington.

"We have concerns about this matter, about Iranian agents in Iraq," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, responding to reports that Iranian-trained agents have crossed into southern Iraq to promote Shiite clerics and advance Iranian interests. "We've made our points clear to the Iranians."

After toppling Saddam's regime, the Bush administration is keen on setting up a broad-based, democratic government in Iraq -- with representation from Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

Paradoxically, however, instituting majority rule could bring theocracy, not democracy -- and one that's not necessarily friendly to U.S. interests.

Winning Shiite support is key to U.S. efforts to block the influence of Iran -- and there are signs this may be possible. Senior Shiite clerics have insisted they want to share power with Iraq's Sunnis and Kurds.

Iraqi Shiites are Arab, not Persian like their Iranian counterparts, and have a strong sense of Iraqi nationalism. During the Iran-Iraq war from 1980-88, they did not rise up against Saddam. Many Shiites oppose the idea of an Islamic state run by clerics, including Iraq's top cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Hussein al-Sistani.

Iraq's largest Shiite group, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, has its headquarters in Tehran, the Iranian capital.

The group's leader, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, is still in Iran. But his brother, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, who commands the group's armed wing, has come back to Iraq to pave the way for the ayatollah's return.

He told al-Jazeera television on Wednesday that the group opposes any foreign presence in Iraq. Its fighters -- the Badr Brigades -- are present around Iraq but have been ordered not to confront U.S. forces, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim told al-Jazeera television.

"We do not want any fighting ... as this would only harm the interests of the Iraqi people," he said.

Iranian political analyst Saeed Leylaz doubted Iran could have much say about its neighbor.

"Iran doesn't have the strategic ability to greatly influence the situation in Iraq or sway it in its own favor due to its own economic problems and lack of international or regional support for an Iranian project," he said.

Jay Garner, the retired U.S. general overseeing postwar reconstruction, told reporters in northern Iraq Wednesday that the Shiite demonstrations in Karbala and elsewhere are "the first part of democracy -- the right to disagree."

"I think the bulk of the Shia, the majority of the Shia, are very glad they are where they are right now. Two weeks ago they wouldn't have been able to demonstrate," he said.