Scholars warn of Iraq becoming dictatorship

"The regional powers, they enter [Iraq] on a private agenda and not for political reform," Iraqi Islamic scholar Mohammad AbdulJabar said at a three-day conference on the role of Islamic groups in the political reform process in the Middle East.

"Iran has a big role in Iraq," he said. "It sends money, men, and I don't know if it also sends weapons."

Mohammad al-Jassem, editor in chief of the Kuwait daily al-Watan, said some Iraqi Islamic groups were effectively Iran's Trojan Horse. They could tip Iraq and Gulf states toward Tehran-style Islamic states if Washington failed to establish an Iraqi system under its control, Jassem added.

"The expected result will be the return of dictatorship," Jassem said. "That's not necessarily by the return of Saddam Hussein, but by any religious party or group."

But Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a member of Iraq's Governing Council and head of the Islamic Da'wa Party, dismissed the idea, saying that Shi'ite groups in Iraq will not seek to dominate other religious groups or minorities.

"The notion that Islamic groups introduce democracy and then turn it into a dictatorship is a really weird one," he said.

In a major policy shift amid rising US casualties from guerrilla attacks, Washington has dropped its insistence that a constitution be written and elections held before power is transferred to the Iraqis. Iraq's US-appointed Governing Council and the US-run Coalition Provisional Administration signed an agreement stating a new transitional government is to take over in June.

Jassem warned against a quick handover of power to Iraqi political parties that lack experience in state administration.

Marina Ottaway of US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said that in addition to the political problems, there were technical factors standing in the way of a smooth transition, including registering voters in the nation of 24 million people, putting together an election law, and setting up the polling stations.

"The problem of the transition is you can't have early elections until you have a constitution, and you can't have a constitution until you have an elected body," she said. "This is the vicious circle that exists" in Iraq.

Ottaway said the agreement between the Governing Council and the Provisional Administration is on the verge of collapse.

"The issue has been reopened on whether or not this transitional assembly should be elected or selected," she said. "The second element, why it is on the verge of collapse, is the growing evidence that the United States is trying to make this interim constitution into a permanent constitution."