Patience on Iraq's Constitution Posted by Michael Signer

The Looking-Glass War continues... from the assiduous folks at the Democratic Policy Council, another installment in Iraq's tragicomedy of errors -- and a key insight:  maybe Iraq ought to complete their constitution until after American troops are withdrawn, thereby allowing a secular constitution to emerge, rather than the pressurized, reactive theocratic document now being hastily (and defensively) drawn up.  More on this below. 

It turns out that in the FY 2005 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act (as originally noted by Kos), Congress required the Secretary of Defense to submit a report to Congress "that identifies security, economic, and Iraqi security force training performance standards and goals, accompanied by a notional timetable for achieving these goals."

Instead of providing an honest, constructive assessment of the situation, DOJ, shockingly, cobbled together an ideologically freighted, disingenuous fretwork of facts, a sort of mirage of Iraq.  One is put in mind of the following dialogue:

"Look, you stupid bastard, you've got no arms left!"

"Yes, I have."

"Look!"

"It's just a flesh wound."

So.  On the report DOD ultimately filed -- 10 days late -- was as politicized and rigged as everything else in the Iraq War so far.  To wit:

Claim: The report claims that "one key measure of progress toward the establishment of a constitutional and democratic government in Iraq is therefore the timeline and political process" set forth by the United States, the United Nations, and the transitional Iraqi government in March 2004 (p. 3). By this standard, the political process "is on track as demonstrated by the January 30 election and successful formation of the TNA [Transitional National Assembly] and the Iraqi Transitional Government." (p.4.) The report consistently refers to progress made toward completing a draft of Iraq's constitution as an indicator that the political process is still on track.

- Fact: There is a risk that the Administration may be focusing on speed to the detriment of quality in the drafting of the Iraqi Constitution. Leading experts have called upon the Iraqi drafting committee and the U.S. to extend the constitutional drafting process to ensure that the constitution that emerges is one that fully protects the rights of all Iraqi citizens and toward which the Iraqi people can feel a sense of ownership and pride. As an International Crisis Group report pointed out, "while there are downsides to delay, they are far outweighed by the dangers of a hurried job that could lead to either popular rejection of or popular resignation to a text toward which they feel little sense of ownership or pride." (6/8/05)

The Administration has instead pushed the drafting committee to finish by August 15, no matter the consequences. There are reports that quality is suffering. The New York Times has reported that "a working draft of Iraq's new constitution would cede a strong role to Islamic law and could sharply curb women's rights." (7/20/05) And the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recently wrote to Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, to express concerns that the draft constitution "limits the equality of women and Iraq's international human rights obligations;" "makes no reference to the right of freedom of religion;" and "provides no guarantee of freedom of thought or conscience." (7/26/05) These reports demonstrate that, while delay is fraught with its own consequences, progress on the political track is far more complicated than simple adherence to artificial deadlines. Addressing at the outset key issues in the content of the constitution is also critical to success.

Knowing what's actually going on in Iraq is most critical in the most important effort now going on:  the drafting of the constitution.  Above and beyond the training of security forces and the building of civil society, successful constitution-making is the sine qua non of successful nation-building in Iraq. 

The constitution will knit together all the disparate pieces of Iraq society, and it won't work unless all the stakeholders have bought into the process, and the final document.  It would be better to be honest about the difficulties at the outset than to find out in a year or so that the document either (a) will fragment under internal strain, (b) will lead to poor human rights, especially for women.

Right now, as the WaPo reports, the Iraq constitution is veering in a highly theocratic direction, in contrast to Turkey or Egypt: 

[M]ariam al-Rayyes, a Shiite member, said Islam will be the state religion and a "main source" for legislation in the constitution.

"It gives women all rights and freedoms as long as they don't contradict with our values," she said. "Concerning marriage, inheritance and divorce, this is civil status laws. That should not contradict with religious values."

More here from NYT. 

It's not clear why Iraq should have a constitution premised on sharia law.  Political expediency, in light of the Administration's artificial deadline, has forced Iraqis to accept the emotionally compelling narrative of creating a religious state to rebut the notion that American secular/Christian decadent imperialism has totally dominated Iraq.

Regardless of your party, everyone has to concede that convincing Iraqis that secularism is in their interest would be a difficult task in any event.  But with Karen Hughes taking her sweet time to get on the job of helping our image in the Middle East, why should we push this first and most important cart in front of the parade? 

Indeed, why finish the constitution before the ultimate American withdrawal of troops?  It took the United States of America, after all, 11 years between the repudiation of the British to complete our own national constitution. 

It hardly seems our security interests (allegedly reflected in the deadline's urgency) justify a finished product that creates both a worse human rights environment and a more fanatical state.

Hard to know what the Black Knight would say about that.

Comments

[Greg Priddy]

"It's not clear why Iraq should have a constitution premised on sharia law."

Has is ever crossed anyone's mind here at D.A. that one of the main reasons that so many Iraqis voted for the Shi'ite fundamenatlist parties, and so few voted for any secular parties, is that implementation of Islamic law is something they want?

And the only reason that Egypt has a secular legal system is that it *isn't* a democracy. Many of the provisions of Egyptian law which conflict with Islamic law, such as womens' right to initiate a divorce proceeding against her husband's wishes, are highly unpopular there, and would almost certainly be repealed by a legislature elected by a real popular vote.

It just amazes me how people in the "idealist" camp can stay in denial on this -- the people writing this constitution are the people the Iraqi public freely elected -- "blue fingers" and all. Why should it surprise us that they reflect Iraqi, rather than American, values?

[Cal]

Greg's got one thing right: you can't blame this on the administration. Even if Bush wasn't pushing for this deadline, Sistani is. And we don't have the legitimacy to buck Sistani.

The truth is that it may not even matter if the Iraqis did write a secular constitution. Basra is already becoming a mini-Iran, and this is caused by the Iranian trained militias, not laws.

Whether a majority of Iraqis want this state of affairs is debatable, but irrelevant.

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