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Somewhere you’ve picked up the misapprehension that the problem in Iran is due to them being “Twelvers” (Shi’ites who regard there as having been twelve Imams who were the legitimate successors to Mohammed, as opposed to, for instance the Ismaelis who regard there as having been seven (and differ from the Twelvers as to who the seventh was) or the Zaydi who regard there as having been four).

Most Shi’ites are Twelvers, including those in Iraq who follow Al Sistani, who got the Iraqis to accept the super-majority provisions in the constitution we wrote for them, and except for a six month period when for good domestic political reasons he tilted toward Iran, objectively supported the U.S. presence in Iraq through the entire previous war and aftermath.

The problem with Iran is not that they are Twelvers, but that they are controlled by the Ta’ajili, a small sect of Twelvers, who contrary to the attitude of most Twelvers, which is to patiently wait for the fulfillment of their end-time prophecies involving the return of the Twelfth Imam, teach instead that the sowing of chaos will hasten the return of the Twelfth Imam. Orthodox “Twelver” Islam and Ismaeli Islam (headed by the Aga Khan) are the two branches of the Islam that come closest to being normal religions, rather than a totalitarian ideology in the cloak of a religion.

Indeed Shi’ites (with the exception of the Zaydis in Yemen who are sometimes considered Sunnis rather than Shi’ites because their four Imams were the first four Caliphs, and thus their position is more sympathetic to salfist Sunnis than other Shi’ites can be) are natural allies against IS, since the notion of a Caliphate is anathema to them.

It is one of the tragedies of history that Iran developed an state ideology including virulent anti-Americanism basically because the Shah had been one of “our bastards” during the Cold War.