Top Shiite Muslim leaders, who are expected to wield the most power after next month's parliamentary elections, are locked in a fierce dispute over whether the new Iraq should be a constitution-based democracy or an Iranian-style state in which clerics reign supreme.
Several Shiite politicians say the debate nearly caused the disintegration of a powerhouse Shiite slate assembled under the auspices of the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most prominent cleric. A breakdown was averted when religious parties backed by Iran agreed to expand the number of secularists and religious moderates on the slate.
"There was a huge fight," said the spokesman for a secular party on the Shiite list, who didn't want to be identified for fear of reprisal. "At one point, the threat was, 'We're going to go tell Sistani.' In the end, the people who stayed on the list are really bitter about it."
The debate still simmers and could boil over after the Jan. 30 elections, which will choose a national assembly to draft a constitution.
Western diplomats are nervous that the Bush administration's goal of making Iraq a model of Middle Eastern democracy will backfire if Shiite clerics take the top posts in the newly elected government. Secular and moderate Shiite politicians fear they'll be sidelined if a leadership that favors theocracy is swept into office.
"There are those who want a Taliban emirate and those who want an Iranian government, and we'll fight both with our ideas," said Jawad al-Bulani, head of the Shiite Political Council, a grouping of moderate Shiite factions. "This dispute, this difference of opinion, came up, and we have to get over it. We must prove that we can present a moderate, balanced list and not let one sect overtake the other."
At the core of the debate is a concept known in Arabic as walayat al faqih. Literally, it means "custodianship of the jurist." Practically, it means absolute rule by clerics. Observers point out that Iran, which strictly follows walayat al faqih, would like to export the model to Iraq in hopes of preventing a secular Shiite-run democracy from emboldening reformers in the Islamic republic next door.
"They're very treacherous waters, but I take some comfort from what I've been told repeatedly by Shiites from all walks of life: that the Shiite community, as a whole, is very allergic to the influence of Iran," said a senior American diplomat in Baghdad, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "So, if many turbans win, I don't equate it with an Iranian victory. I equate it instead to a possible shift on that continuum between completely secular and completely religious."
Even Sistani, who was born in Iran and speaks Arabic with an Iranian accent, reportedly doesn't agree with such clerical rule. His representatives have said repeatedly that the ayatollah prefers a strict separation of mosque and state, though his intervention in Iraq's wartime politics suggests otherwise.
Candidates familiar with the debate said supporters included members of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Dawa Party and Hussain Shahristani, a nuclear physicist who recently was labeled an "Iranian agent" by the interim Iraqi defense minister.
These leaders are known to have received money and refuge from Iran as they fled persecution under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship.