No, we don't need to worry about Iraqi Shiites more than we should. From Amir Taheri, in Iraq:

For the first time in 32 years Iraqi Shiites were able to perform a pilgrimage that had been banned by the Baathist regime. It was also the first free mass gathering in Iraq in almost half a century not to be crushed by the regime's tanks and helicopters.

Was all that a show of anti-Americanism or, at least, a "warning" to Washington as some pundits claim?

On the contrary: The gathering showed how isolated anti-American groups are among Iraqi Shiites.

Throughout Arbain, small bands of militants, some freshly arrived from Iran, were posted at the entrance of streets leading to the two main shrines. They carried placards and posters calling for an "Islamic republic" and shouted anti-American slogans. But it soon became clear that few pilgrims were prepared to join them.

All the pilgrims I could talk to expressed their "gratitude and appreciation" to the U.S. and its British allies for having freed them from the most brutal regime Iraq had seen since its creation in 1921.

Needless to say, however, most television cameras were focused on the small number of militants who had something "hot," a.k.a. anti-American, to say.

But that doesn't mean Iraq isn't deadly vulnerable to political infiltration and corruption from authoritarians in its midst - which very well includes every single nation in the Near East besides Israel. Not to mention the State Department, the dictator-nuzzling knuckleheads. An excellent article. Panic is not warranted; but nor is rosily assuming the Bush administration as wholly focused and in concurrence on building a democratic Iraq.