The Associated Press reports that Iraq's draft constitution is dominated by Islam:
The draft states no law will be approved that contradicts "the rules of Islam" a requirement that could affect women's rights and set Iraq on a course far different from the one envisioned when U.S.-led forces invaded in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein.
"Islam is the official religion of the state and is the main source of legislation," reads the draft published in the government newspaper Al-Sabah. "No law that contradicts with its rules can be promulgated."
Of course Iraq's constitution will be heavily influenced by Islam. But I am heartened by Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani, saying that Iraq would never become an Islamic state, but would enshrine federalism, democracy and pluralism:
"Human rights and individual liberties, including religious freedom, will be at the heart of the new Iraq," the president said at his residence in Baghdad.
In another report, the Associated Press indicated that because the draft constitution gives Islam such a major role in Iraqi civil law, women could lose rights in marriage, divorce and inheritance.
Most worrying for women's groups has been the section on civil rights in the draft constitution, which some feel would significantly roll back women's rights under a 1959 civil law enacted by a secular regime.
In the copy obtained by AP on Monday, Article 19 of the second chapter says "the followers of any religion or sect are free to choose their civil status according to their religious or sectarian beliefs."
Shiite Muslim leaders have pushed for a stronger role for Islam in civil law but women's groups argue that could base legal interpretations on stricter religious lines that are less favorable toward women.
The New York Times reports that the U.S. will work to guarantee the rights of Iraqi women:
With less than three weeks to go before the country's permanent constitution is supposed to be completed, the new ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, indicated that the United States would play an active and, if need be, public role in brokering what he called a "national compact" among the country's ethnic and sectarian groups.
In remarks at his residence inside the heavily fortified Green Zone, Mr. Khalilzad spoke twice of the need to avert a civil war, a possibility that Iraqi and American officials speak of here with growing frequency. To reach an accommodation, he said, it would be necessary for each of the main ethnic and religious groups to "accept less than its maximum aspirations."
[. . .]
In his remarks, Mr. Khalilzad said he expected Iraq's new constitution to enshrine the principle of "equality before the law for men and women." Those remarks seemed an admonition to the Iraqi drafters of the constitution, which in one recent version allowed issues like marriage, inheritance and divorce to be governed by strict interpretations of Koranic law, known as Shariah. That would almost certainly result in a curtailment of some of the rights long held by women here.
Mr. Khalilzad left little doubt what he thought of proposals to turn over family matters to religious law. "A society cannot achieve all its potential if it does things that prevents - weakens prospects of - half of its population to make the fullest contribution that it can," he said.
I'm sure that when it is finally put before the Iraqi voters there will much that some of us won't like about Iraq's new constitution. We have to keep in mind that Iraq's population is nearly entirely Islamic. We can provide the Iraqis the opportunity for freedom. What they choose to do with it has to be left up to the Iraqis. We can't force our ideas of separation of church and state and Jeffersonian democracy on others in the name of freedom.
While I may wish some things were different about the new constitution drafted by the Iraqis, I take some satisfaction from the fact that the terrorists dislike the draft constitution more than I do.
According to the Associated Press, on Tuesday "Iraq's most feared terrorist group warned Sunni Arabs against taking part in the October referendum on the constitution, saying their participation would make them infidels and therefore subject to the same treatment as occupation forces."
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