Too bad Shiism is not a mindless death cult, and the religion in general is at least as diverse as Christianity, and the people who practice it run the usual gamut found in all major faiths: from nutjobs to very sane, from moderate to extreme, from fundamentalist to traditionalist to modernist, etc. And, little factors like language and culture and tribal affiliations and whatnot are every bit as important as religion when it comes to political matters.

Plus there’s the little fact that millions of Iraqi families lost members in the war with Iran; Iran is not exactly a beloved country to most Iraqis.

Ah but no, we would soon have "An Islamic Republic in the orbit of Iran" because, well, we had free elections there (unlike Iran, which has never had any free elections) and people who self-identified as Shia voted.

Whatever. It didn’t happen, and it’d be nice to see forthright acknowledgement of that, instead of just running away and pretending it was never said, hoping no one would notice.

I think this is a little high. The figure I have usually seen is 60-65%.

One important point is that many of the sacred sites of Shia Islam are in Iraq. Many Shia leaders believe that the Iraqi Shia are the rightful leaders of the Shia faith, and that Iran has taken over control of the Shia faith because of Saddam’s repression of Iraqi Shia. Long term this could be a source of friction between Iran and the Iraqi Shia, but right now more important issues are driving Iran/Iraq relations.

Iran had some influence due to their "Islamic revolution," in the same way that Che Guevera is still popular among grad students and other "rebels" in college towns and such. The truth is that the Iranians are a different race, a different culture, speak a completely different language, and practice one of many varieties of Shiism; the idea that they’d exert a massive influence on Iraq was always kinda shallow, and now that it didn’t happen at all it would be nice to see forthright acknowledgement of such. Instead it appears to be just another myth about the situation there that’s disappeared in the mists of time (like the fact that we were greeted as liberators, and with flowers–which by the way we were).

I think Dave is absolutely correct, though, in saying that the official Iraqi government response, if there is one, will be crucial (perhaps even definitive, as much as these things can be) in either rebutting or bolstering the argument.

The Iraqis have a nation and the vast majority of them want to keep that nation, which they’re proud of.

Elisha Feger’s last blog post..Fatal Wisdom – Principles of Humanity