In July 2001 three prominent Iraqi Shia Arabs in exile penned a manifesto known as ‘The Declaration of the Shia of Iraq’. They criticised Saddam Hussein's avowedly sectarian brand of authoritarianism and highlighted the atrocities he had committed against the Shia Arab people of Iraq. They called for an end to Saddam's cruel dictatorship, advocating the ‘establishment of a democratic parliamentary constitutional order, that carefully avoids the hegemony of one sect or ethnic group over the others’ (al-Rubaie et al. 2010: 315). In the lead up to the 2003 US intervention, the declaration received wide support from Iraqi Shia clerics and US war planners alike. Not surprisingly, following the war and the toppling of Saddam's regime, it was arguably the Shia Arab majority and their leaders who were the most enthusiastic about bringing democracy to Iraq and the most determined to put US rhetoric on democracy promotion to the test.

Perhaps the best-known example came from the country's leading Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who issued a number of politically motivated fatwas that demanded elections and called upon the faithful (including women) to vote (al-Sistani 2010). Other members of the Shia Arab political elite also incorporated elements of democracy into their programmes: a complex array of Shia Arab political parties (re)emerged forming policy-driven campaigns and complex alliances; they organised major protests, civil disobedience campaigns and nationwide petitions; and they created news outlets and used them to disseminate information to their constituents (Isakhan 2013a, 2015b). In the lead up to the January and December 2005 elections, the key Shia Arab political parties – Da'wa (‘Calling’), the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), Moqtada al-Sadr's Sadr Trend, the Badr Organisation and al-Fadhila (‘Islamic Virtue Party’) – all came together under the banner of the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA). The negotiations were notably facilitated and encouraged by Sistani, who, with other prominent Shia Arab leaders, acknowledged that by bringing the varying Shia Arab factions together they stood a greater chance of winning at the polls and subsequently wielding unprecedented power. This was to pay dividends. On the back of democratic elections, the Shia Arabs ascended the political hierarchy to not only dominate Iraq but become the first ever Shia-led political authority in the modern Arab world.