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COMMENTARY
August 17, 2005
Iraqi law
Among the elementary questions yet to be decided in the drafting of the new Iraqi constitution are: the role of Islam (if any), women's rights (if any), the degree of autonomy for the various parts of the federation (if any), the constitutional position of municipalities (if any), the distribution of oil wealth (if any), and whether the Kurds have a right to secede. In other words, every major issue remains on the table, in its raw form.On Monday, the (transitional) Iraqi Parliament voted to give the negotiators another seven days to reach provisional conclusions. This, in the face of great pressure from the Bush administration, and other external observers, to move along. Iraqis, across their ethnic and political spectra, and Americans, across theirs, seem to take different views of the consequences of delay. The U.S. State Department, the Pentagon, and the White House have all subscribed (an accomplishment in itself) to the theory that the Iraqi Sunni-Islamist terrorist insurgency is feeding on political uncertainties. I have myself swung over to the Iraqi position, however: that this insurgency feeds on anything it can find. And the increasingly "Islamist" Shia hotheads, under e.g. the firebrand Moqtada al-Sadr, in turn feed upon the Sunni insurgency, as the endless car-and-suicide bombings trigger reactions in Shia hearts and minds. The Shia "moderate" establishment, under the direction of a circle of politicians who invariably consult Grand Ayatollah Sistani, is in turn put under increasing pressure to resist Sunni pressure, and maximize Shia autonomy within the new federation. Since we are dealing with first principles, not only of responsible government per se, but of federalism, it is worth noting that the undertaking the Bush administration gave the world upon invading -- to keep Iraq in one national piece -- is what makes the task of constitution-writing nearly impossible today. We have three nations here (not counting smaller regional minorities), each with crucial interests constantly in conflict with those of at least one of the other two. The settled notion, in both East and West, is that progress requires mutual appeasement. This may work at low temperatures, when cool heads prevail. The temperature in Iraq is rising, however. It should be seen that it is not just factional Islam getting in the way: the distribution of the oilfields, and the long sorry history of tyranny, are enough in their own right to assure failure. In general, the Shia Arabs and Kurds are capable of agreeing on most substantive issues, but neither with any of the Sunni factions. The Kurds are even willing to grant the Shia some degree of special religious authority, rather than allow the more frightening Sunni Arab imams to claim an equal footing. It is moreover worth noting, that the mere possibility, in Islam, of some sort of separation between "mosque" and "state", is easier to imagine in the Shia tradition, than in that of any of the four Sunni schools of legal thought, each of which look upon any notion of a society beyond the strict control of a narrowly-interpreted Sharia law, as being idolatry, apostasy, or worse. Paradoxically, in neighbouring Iran, under the crazed regime descending from the Shia Islamist revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, a degree of autonomy for "civil society" is implied by the very creation of a formal institutional structure for Islam, and the elevation of the mullahs to a clerical status not unlike that of the priesthood in Christendom. This creates the possibility of drawing boundaries around their authority; and in the fullness of time, those boundaries might come to be jealously enforced by a secular state. There are no such boundaries in the Sunni Islamic world -- or, none that can be formally acknowledged. And at its most essential, the power struggle in Iraq today comes down, without the parties fully realizing it, to that issue of whether boundaries can be drawn. This is why I am myself hoping the Shia will prevail. Even if the role of Islam is to be written into the Iraqi constitution in a way that would make any Western liberal (in the best sense) flinch, it is better to express the terms in black and white. I do not think the grievances of the Sunnis can be assuaged, for they continue intransigent no matter what compromises are offered to them, forgetting that they are not only a minority, but one with a spectacularly odious past. Alas, their case is amplified abroad through an Arab world that is overwhelmingly Sunni. There are times when Gordian knots must be cut, and I should think this is one of them. Pressure upon the Iraqis, from the Bush administration, to "achieve a compromise" is only encouraging this Sunni intransigence. It is time for Shia Arabs and Kurds to combine, impose a majoritarian Iraqi constitution, and then -- well, back it up with force. I do wish the Bush administration could see that. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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