With a Shiite coalition set to take power in Iraq, American officials have begun grilling top Iraqi Shiite politicians to try to gauge the extent of their relationship with neighbouring Iran, a predominantly Shiite nation ruled by its clergy. The nature of the Shiite coalition's ties to Iran has become a crucial issue now that the cleric-backed alliance has emerged as the leading faction in the new Iraqi parliament and at a time when the United States and Iran are engaged in a war of words over Iran's nuclear programme. In recent talks, US diplomats have bluntly asked the leaders how a Shiite-dominated government would react if Iran came under attack by an outside power because of its suspected nuclear weapons programme, according to a high-ranking member of one Shiite party. The Iraqi Shiite leaders have reassured the Americans that they are mostly concerned about how any such attack would affect Iraq, and they have stressed their independence from Iran, said the Shiite party official, who is familiar with the US talks but would speak only on condition of anonymity. Despite such assurances, the questioning highlights a growing US worry that the government set to take power in Iraq could be dominated by Shiite clerics strongly influenced by Iran. Many members of the Iraqi Shiite coalition lived in Iran until the April 2003 fall of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Despite those Iranian links, US officials supported the Iraqi Shiite parties before the war because they shared Saddam as a common enemy. Three of the Shiite parties in the coalition closely cooperated with the United States in the run-up to the US-led Iraq invasion.
The prospect of close Iraq-Iran Shiite ties also worries Iraq's Sunni Arab minority — a group that had long dominated Iraq under Saddam and which nurtures strong anti-Iranian sentiments. The Shiite ticket set to take power in Iraq, called the United Iraqi Alliance, is built around two major Shiite parties with close links to Iran — Daawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, known as SCIRI. It was endorsed by the Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite cleric, and includes supporters of a young Shiite cleric, Moqtada Sadr, with ties to the Iranian clergy, and prominent politician Ahmad Chalabi, a secular Shiite who once was Washington's favourite to replace Saddam. "The Iranian ticket," was how many Sunni Arabs dubbed the Sistani-endorsed slate.