AN IRAQI THEOCRACY???

We've read and heard that if we pull out of Iraq that it may either turn into an Iran-style theocracy or be a puppet state of Iran. In his testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Thomas Fingar let us know that U.S. intelligence doesn't think either will happen.

MR. FINGAR: ...Though the Shi'a majority would have the appearance of extending the Shi'a influence in the region but the Shi'a in Iraq are not generally beholden to Iran -- that it was Shi'a troops who died in the largest numbers in the eight-year war between Iraq and Iran...

[SNIP]

MR. FINGAR:It is hard to predict but I'll make a prediction, one in which I have a fair degree of confidence -- is that it will be difficult for Iran to hold Iraq in its sway -- that the Arabs are not Persians -- that at some point that becomes more important than the Shi'a affinity. As one of the most influential Shi'a clerics has put it yes, he spent a great deal of time in Iran with being under house arrest -- didn't make him warm -- feel warm and fuzzy toward the Iranians. That the very different views of the role of the clerics in governance -- the valyadi haqi (ph) approach of the Iranians is not accepted by the more -- most influential of the Iranian [sic - meant "Iraqi"] clerics. They believe sort of governance is a bad and dirty thing, and the religious should not be deeply involved in that as a separation of church and state kind of thing -- that --

REP. AKIN: So the Iraqis are more into that separation than the Iranians are?

MR. FINGAR: Yes.