The Bush administration is now focusing on the critical issue of Iran's potential hijacking of the nascent democratic state we are paying so dearly to create in Iraq. In a speech in Philadelphia on Monday, President Bush declared that this week's election in Iraq would not bring an end to violence and that “Iraq was still threatened by Iran, Syria and its own religious and ethnic tensions.” In a similar vein, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, declared, “We do not want Iran to interfere in Iraqi internal affairs.”

This emphasis on the potential troublemaking role of Iran by U.S. policymakers is right on point. Iraq is at the center, geographically, ethnically, and politically of the turmoil in the Middle East. The ethnic divide is sharp. Sixty percent of the Iraqi population is Shiite, twenty percent Sunni, and twenty percent Kurd. Saddam Hussein was a Sunni. The Baathist thugs, who ruled along with Saddam, were all from the Sunni community. The domestic terror that they imposed was directed at the Shiites and the Kurds.

The United States has consistently underestimated the animosity between Sunnis and Shiites in the Arab world. For a frame of reference, think about the religious wars between Catholics and Protestants that were waged in Europe for centuries and are only just now dimming in Northern Ireland. Think about the religious strife in the former Yugoslavia as that country was ripped apart. The hatred between Sunnis and Shiites is driving the insurgency.

In this respect, the situation in Iraq is a microcosm of the Middle East. Sunnis dominate the oil rich Arab nations, which all have impoverished Shiite communities ripe for exploitation by the radical Islamists.

As the President's speech in Philadelphia correctly pointed out, both the Sunni world, led by Syria on one side of Iraq, and Shiite forces, led by Iran on the other side, have been assisting their religious brethren in the months of violence that followed the ouster of Saddam Hussein. The election will hopefully create a representative Iraqi government. However, neither the Syrians, who demonstrated their tenacity with the recent new attacks in Lebanon, nor the Iranians are likely to cease their violent opposition to that government. Neither is interested in half a loaf. Both want control of the entire government.

The threat posed by Iran is particularly troublesome because the ruling mullahs in Tehran are so virulently opposed to the United State and determined to adversely affect American interests in any possible way. The largest oil reserves in Iraq are in the Shiite controlled areas in the south. The mullahs in Iran would like nothing better than to gain control over those oil reserves which, along with their own substantial reserves, would give them increased leverage in their battle with the United States.

Moreover, the Iranian mullahs have an insidious plan for controlling Iraq. They are supplying and influencing much of the Shiite leadership in the hope and expectation that once the Shiites gain control of the Iraq, they will convert the entire country, or at least the southern portion, into a theocracy allied with Iran, turning the clock back ten centuries with respect to women's rights and other civil liberties we consider self evident.

Equally troublesome is that if Iran is a model, this conversion to a theocracy will not occur immediately. In an excellent book by Roya Hakakian, Journey From the Land of No , the author, who was twelve years old at the time, describes the revolution in Iran in graphic detail. For the first twelve months after the Shah's departure and the return of Khomeini, people enjoyed enormous freedom that they had never had under the Shah. Intellectuals hailed the revolution as a time of “fresh air.” Then the Ayatollah and the mullahs clamped the country into a theocratic straight jacket that ultimately forced the author, her family, and millions of others to flee the country -- if they were fortunate enough to avoid being imprisoned or executed.

For the United States the lesson is clear. We must be vigilant to assure that Iraq is permitted to develop a secular government. This means preventing the radical Islamists from seizing control and allying with Iran. We're walking a tightrope, but failing to do so will mean greater costs to the United States in the long run.