Much of postwar Iraq, contrary to Bush prewar assumptions, has become vicious, insecure and dysfunctional. Most of Iraq, about 60 percent, is Shi’a Muslim. Any connection?

Yes – but exactly the reverse of what Pentagon planners like to acknowledge: Civil order is thriving most legitimately in precisely those Iraqi areas under Shi’a religious leadership. Ditto the largest, best organized, least pro-U.S. demonstrations. Hence this three-question primer on Shi’a Islam. At issue, the Bush belief that “secular Shi’as” will take a lead role in creating a united, democratic, multi-sectarian Iraq.

1. What does Shi’a mean? The word is Arabic for “faction” or, when personalized, “partisan.” Feel the edginess, the sense of schism, the potential for bitter grievance? All these emerged on the day Mohammed died in 632 C.E. The key issue: leadership succession.

Islam’s final Prophet, unlike so many others in world religious history, ended life an enormous success. Twenty-two years of Qur’anic revelation – the verbatim word of God, Muslims believe, transmitted via the archangel Gabriel to a hitherto obscure camel driver-turned-merchant – had led to military triumph and then unchallenged administrative direction of a vigorous and rapidly growing community. Never before had the fractious tribes of Arabia been united in anything like common cause and sentiment. Nor had any one man ever achieved such singular prominence. No one, it was understood, could replace Mohammed – especially since divine prophecy had been “sealed” by his death – but who would now take charge as his “Caliph” (deputy)?

The Prophet’s closest “Companions” quickly split over two opposed principles of succession: consensus and heredity. Most opted for the former, and a worthy elder was selected as the first Caliph. A minority claimed that only a lineal descendant of Mohammed – a male, it goes without saying – should assume his mantle. And, as there were no sons, the natural candidate was Mohammed’s son-in-law Ali.

That minority – at first merely disgruntled, later angrily dispossessed – became known as Shi’at Ali, the Party of Ali. “Sunni” Muslims, on the other hand, take their name from the Islamic concept of Sunnah or “common practice.” Begun more than 1,400 years ago, this Sunni-Shi’a division remains unreconciled. Iraqi leaders, solicitous of American support, assure us that hard feelings no longer exist – or that they, the Iraqi aspirants, can somehow transcend whatever lingering bitterness. No one has yet.

2. What do Shi’as believe? The rationale for succession by heredity, Shi’as maintain, hinges on a body of esoteric knowledge which Mohammed shared only with Ali. Too dangerously powerful for common folk, this trove of secret understanding is said to supplement and interpret the Holy Qur’an. Thus entrusted, Ali became the first Shi’a Imam, a word used by Sunnis to mean any prayer leader but which Shi’as reserve for Ali and his inspired, infallible successors.

But things, Shi’as argue, went wrong from the start. Ali was thrice passed over in Sunni-style leadership selections. Finally chosen as the fourth Caliph in 656, he was murdered five years later. The title of Imam passed to his two sons, but power went to Sunni usurpers. Hussein, the second son, tried to restore Shi’a rule but was famously slain at the battle of Karbala in 680. Subsequent Imams were likewise foully murdered, more than half of them in what now is called Iraq. The 12th and final Imam, according to most Shia’s, went into “occultation” in 873 – alive but hidden from this wicked world until his return shortly before the end of time.

This mix of fact and fancy – no more or less bizarre than what other religions postulate as Truth – has led to three notions widely shared among Shia’s. First (given the emphasis on esoteric knowledge) is an attitude that things are not as they seem, that there is an interior reality beneath surface appearances. Such mystification is compounded by a practice known as taqiyya whereby Shi’as may, temporarily, submit to tyrants when persecuted and even “dissimulate” regarding their faith. What’s what and who’s who? The Shi’a world is hard to penetrate.

Second (consistent with the specialness of Ali and his Imam successors), Shi’as have evolved an elitist hierarchy of clerics, topped by ayatollahs. Certain clergymen are credited with an ability to interpret the otherwise unknowable intents of their hidden Imam. These eminent figures attract lesser clerics.. The resulting structure gives Shi’a Islam more organizational muscle than is found among Sunnis, an advantage when it comes to resisting outsiders.

Third, Shi’as regard history itself – even the great achievements of mainstream Sunni Islam – as the product of false pretenders and bogus regimes. Consider this time-depth difference: For Sunni Muslims, things began going wrong only with Western encroachments of the past two or three centuries; for Shi’as, distortion and perversion have been under way for nearly a millennium and a half. Do today’s Sunni Muslims seem to have a chip (anti-Western) on one shoulder? Shi’as have chips on both. Only rarely have they been in formal power anywhere. As such, they’re predisposed to regard any government – even (perhaps especially) most Muslim regimes – as illegitimate and deserving of overthrow.

What are the implications for rebuilding Iraq? In particular, what about the Bush trust in “secular Shi’as” like U.S. import Ahmed Chalabi?

I’ve never visited Iraq, less still resided there, and so the anthropologist in me (my sole claim to legitimacy) cautions against vicarious prediction. I have, however, lived in both Afghanistan (minority Shi’a) and Iran (almost entirely Shi’a). Relevant recollections from each:

Luck placed me, two months ago, in Afghanistan’s largest Shi’a settlement on Shi’ism’s most important day. The town of Bamiyan is famous for its (now destroyed) Buddha statues, but today’s population is predominately Shi’a. Like their brethren in Saddam’s Iraq, they’ve been oppressed by a succession of Sunni Afghan governments. Now, given the past quarter-century of central government weakness, these Shi’as have reclaimed considerable autonomy. A U.S. military-humanitarian base at Bamiyan’s airstrip currently limits conflict. Short-term we’re there for local reconstruction. Our long-term goal, how-ever, is national re-integration – not unlike our aim in Iraq.

I arrived in Bamiyan on the day of “Ashura,” the anniversary of Imam Hussein’s brutal death at Karbala. The bazaar was draped in black mourning cloth … with occasional, small American flags to welcome U.S. troops at a midday rally. Our soldiers from Montana and Mississippi were doubtless glad to see the Star-Spangled Banner. But what about the black banners with white Persian slogans from Iran’s late anti-American Ayatollah Khomeini? Here’s one: “Every day is Ashura, and every place is Karbala.” Lesson: These Bamiyan Shi’as may accept U.S. presence for now, may even be glad that it protects them from other Afghans, but aren’t about to go back to any “re-integrated” status-quo-ante. They’re more Shi’a than Afghan. And infinitely more faith-based than secular.

My Iranian recollections are more distant (1973), and more easily summarized. As U.S. diplomat in the Shah’s Tehran, I knew lots of Iranians. All, at least technically, were Shi’as. In retrospect, almost all were also secularists. Their main interests: political nationalism, cultural modernization, and personal advancement.

What happened? The Shah was toppled, Ayatollah Khomeini took his place, American diplomats were taken hostage, and virtually every one of my Tehran acquaintances was soon killed or fled into exile. Deep-dyed Shi’ism, so often aggrieved by history, now rules the Islamic Republic of Iran. Its quasi-mystical doctrine and clerical hierarchy continue to evoke enormous resonance. Progressive reformers risk losing religious legitimacy. “Secular Shi’ism,” at least in the Iranian context, seems a contradiction in terms.

Will Iraq prove different? Yes – because Iraqi Shi’as occupy a demographic middle ground between Shi’as in Afghanistan (20 percent) and Iran (nearly 100 percent). They won’t opt out, as their Afghan brethren in Bamiyan would like to do. They can’t overwhelm as in Iran. But neither – given the bitter, emotive heritage of Shi’ism – can we expect Iraqi Shi’as to embrace secular partnership in a nondenominational Iraq.

Secularism is part of what Saddam Hussein, with extreme brutality, tried to force on Iraqi Shi’as. Some of them (like Chalabi whose style recalls my Shah-era Iranian acquaintances) went into Western exile. Some (like Ayatollah Baqr al-Hakim, the “Iraqi Khomeini”) chose exile in Shi’a Iran and now return to great acclaim. Most stayed where they were, hunkered down, and faked secularism – in accordance with Shi’a notions of temporary acquiescence.

Now, however, Saddam is gone, and there’s less reason to fake. Can America count on Iraqi Shi’as to be our secular allies?

Dr. Whitney Azoy, a cultural anthropologist and former U.S. diplomat in Kabul, has worked for 30 years with Afghanistan and the Muslim world. Editor’s note: The second edition of Dr. Azoy’s definitive study, “Buzkashi: Game and Power in Afghanistan,” is newly available from Waveland Press.