What I get the jist of is that Shiites are more like Catholic, while Sunnis more Protestant.
Not at all. Neither is really like either. I suppose you could argue a certain similerity between the Shia and the Greek Orthodox Church and *maybe* Sufism and Pentecostalism (although both comparisions are stretching things a lot) but that's about it really.
Neither group is really centralized at all; besides the "Sunnis" are traditionally split into three groups (I forget the names) and a hell of a lot of other groups have split off from all the other groups from both Sunni and Shia etc. etc.
Very complicated.
Um... define "worst" please... most reactionary? most repressive? Nope neither is true of Shia Islam (which has traditionally been fairly liberal and "above" politics... Khomenism is a strange exception). The people you want for that are the Wahabbis.
Dealt with Khomenism above and I don't think that anyone involved in the Lebanon covered themselves with glory (IMO the worst involved was Syria).
Uh huh...
That Iraq is currently in a mess is the collective fault of the former Ba'athist regime and of the various terrorist groups (and what a diverse bunch of psychotic murderers they are...) not the Shia/Shiites.
In fact the people who have been killed (from little children looking for sweets to casual labourers looking for work) in their thousands have been overwhelmingly Shiite; that there hasn't been a *very* bloody revenge campaign against the Sunnis yet is actually quite suprising. But I suspect a line was crossed the other day.
