IRAN: Well before the first bomb dropped on Baghdad, western analysts worried that liberation from Saddam Hussein's Sunni-based tyranny could push Iraq's Shia majority into the arms of Iranian theocrats.
But an extraordinary outburst this week from the grandson of the founder of Iran's Islamic Republic shows that the Iraqi Shia renaissance is a double-edged weapon; potentially every bit as dangerous for Iran's contested regime as it is for Washington.
"Iranians insist on freedom, but they are not sure where it will come from," Mr Seyyed Hussein Khomeini said in the Iraqi town of Najaf on Tuesday. "If it comes from inside, they will welcome it, but if it was necessary for it to come from abroad, especially from the United States, people will accept it."
Iran's response to US warnings not to meddle in Iraq's affairs have been a series of barbed declarations that "no one has the right to interfere in another country's affairs."
"Tehran has no intention of trying to impose its political model on Iraq," said Mr Amir Mohebbian, a columnist for the ultra-conservative daily, Resalat. "All clerics, whether political or apolitical, share our goals and objectives."
But other observers here say there is plenty of evidence many in Iran would prefer Iraq to adopt its version of clerical rule. They point, for example, to senior clerical support for the fiery orator, Moqtada al-Sadr, whose virulent anti-Americanism has gained him immense popularity in Najaf.
Other clerics routinely describe members of Iraq's new leaders' council as "American lackeys."
The rationale for such behaviour is clear, argued Mr Seyyed Mohaghegh Damad, a Tehran-based Islamic law expert. "The revival of politically independent seminaries in Najaf will have a spill-over effect on Iran", he said.
"It could create a breathing space for those wishing to conform to the age-old precepts of Shia tradition - the pious, apolitical links between senior ayatollahs and their followers."
It could do far more than that. Mesmerised by the beleaguered efforts of Iran's reformists to push for change, western observers have tended to underestimate the extent of clerical opposition to the Iranian regime.
One London-based clerical opposition group estimates that of approximately 5,000 ayatollahs in Iran, only 80 support the regime. Among the so-called grand ayatollahs, whose piety and learning make them "objects of emulation" for their followers, the disparity is even greater. Of 14 inside Iran, only one has given mitigated support to the concept of velayat-e faqih, the system that sees the Supreme Leader as God's regent on earth. The others consider it a blasphemous misinterpretation of Shia doctrine.
While Ayatollah Khomeini was alive, doubts about the doctrine he did so much to invent were tempered by his immense clerical standing. The same is not true of his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, only a mid-ranking cleric when he was appointed Supreme Leader in 1989.
"Senior clerics treat his theological pronouncements with disdain", says Mr Nadeem Kazmi, spokesman for the London-based Al-Khoei Foundation, which has close links to the resolutely apolitical Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Najaf.
What Ali Khamenei lacks in clerical credentials he has made up for in repression. Recent years have seen increased attempts to bring traditionally independent seminaries in Qom under state control. Nobody knows how many dissenting clerics have been executed on the orders of special clerical courts, although some sources put the figure at 60 since 1989.
"If Qom remains under the same kind of oppressive atmosphere, everyone will come to Najaf," Mr Khomeini said on Tuesday.
Following a series of high-level clerical defections in recent years, some Iranian analysts see signs that dissatisfaction in Iran has spread to traditionally pro-regime clerics. Most Iranians are doubtful, however, whether the clerics will stir themselves to active revolt.