This is an old article (well worth reading in its entirety), after the Iraqi elections but before the selection of Jaafari for PM. I recently came across it again, and it contains a sentence which, in addition to being bizarrely hilarious, shows just how far Iraq has slipped from the neocon dream:
Another name that is frequently mentioned for Iraq's top post is Hussein al-Shahrastani, a nuclear scientist who is close to Iraq's most popular religious figure, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
Nuclear ayatollahs? Boy, democracy sure is messy.