Shia are a majority - probably 60% - of the population, but with a ferocious repression, the Saddam regime ensured their political weight to be negligible. With Iraq liberated by the US and promised to a bright democratic future, Shiites now assert their political weight. No doubt many a cleric dreams of an Islamic theocratic state, on the model of Iran, evenif the latter is a total failure. Already, the passion and the fury of the Shiite religious rituals feed their political stands.