Thanks to the "war on terror" after the Iraqi elections a Shiite coalition, that happens to have close links to Iran, is set to take power in Iraq.

Now American officials have begun grilling top Iraqi Shiite politicians to try to gauge the extent of their relationship with neighboring Iran, a predominantly Shiite nation ruled by its clergy.

Associated Press, BAGHDAD, IRAQ - 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 program.

Ahhhh the spreading of democracy to all nations…

…. the questioning highlights a growing U.S. 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, U.S. officials supported the Iraqi Shiite parties before the war because they shared Saddam as a common enemy.

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 — Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, known as SCIRI.

Warning obligatory assurance statement ahead….

Nevertheless, Shiite leaders like Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim of SCIRI — who heads the ticket — and Iraqi Vice President Ibrahim al-Jaafari of Dawa have been reaching out to Arab Sunnis in recent days, assuring them that they would be represented in the next government and involved in drafting a permanent constitution, one of the assembly’s main tasks.

Wheewwww that was close, I was almost worried