PERSPECTIVE

What most fail to understand is that Shi’ite Islam—the religion of 60% of Iraqis—actually provides the best opportunity to establish democracy in the Middle East...

As soon as Shi’ites loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took up arms and took over several towns in southern Iraq, the topic of conversation on cable news and editorial pages turned to question of whether or not Shi’ites could become a functioning part of a democratic Iraq.

Whenever the issue of Shi’ites and democracy arises, Iran is inevitably discussed. But despite the appearance of a democratic government—holding elections every few years that are 90% fixed by the ruling mullahs—Iran is run by a highly unpopular handful of tyrants. In fact, if an honest election were held in Iran tomorrow—particularly among the 70% of the population under age 25—George W. Bush would beat the reigning mullahs in a landslide.

The tyrants in Tehran do have roots in Shi’ite tradition, but only in a tiny sect of the religion. The vast majority of Iranian clerics, in fact, despise the despots in power, though fear ensures their silence.

The Iranian mullahs no more represent Shi’ite Islam than the Ku Klux Klan does Christianity...

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most recognizable and respected Shi’ite leader in Iraq, firmly believes in the separation of mosque and state. His belief is also held by mainstream Shi’ite Islam, which believes in the separation until the twelfth imam—who disappeared in the year 873—reappears as the rightful ruler. As he helps push Iraq towards free elections, Sistani is adamantly refusing to place himself in a leadership position in the new power structure—something he could easily achieve if he so desired.

For those who believe that Islam and democracy—at least in the Arab world—are mutually exclusive entities, al-Sadr, who is backed by the Iranian mullahs, is brought up as Exhibit A.

But as former Defense Department official Michael Rubin, who left Iraq recently after spending 18 months there, wrote in National Review Online, “This week’s violence appears to have less to do with Iraqi sentiment than with Muqtada al-Sadr’s quest for power.”

And lest we forget, al-Sadr is on the lam because an Iraqi judge issued a warrant for his arrest months ago for his role in last year’s brutal murder of moderate Shi’ite cleric Majid al-Khoei, who was chopped to pieces in the holy Shrine of Imam Ali.

Seen by the Iraqi people as both a murderer and a stooge of the Iranian mullahs, al-Sadr’s support is rapidly declining. His campaign of violence is nothing more than a last desperate bid for power before ballots are cast in an election he could not hope to win.

In Iraq, especially given its large Shi’ite population, the U.S. has the ability to establish a beachhead of democracy in the Middle East. Now is not the time to give up.