The submitted draft of the Iraqi constitution is better than earlier drafts. Still, it contains much that disturbs Western eyes. "Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation," reads the draft Iraqi Constitution. "No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam."

The constution gives all Iraqis accused of crime the right to a trial, but by the judiciary and not by a jury. Article 30 "guarantees social and health insurance." Article 34 proclaims: "Free education is a right for Iraqis in all its stages." The freedom from the federal government outlined in the American First Amendment are guaranteed, "as long as it does not violate public order and morality." The documents even points to a state "childrearing policy."

Despite the nit-picking, and the more substantial criticisms, the constitution improves upon what existed. Its most controversial plank, establishing federalism to foster self-government within the diverse localities, may prove the most important plank if this Iraqi government survives. But will any of this matter? Totalitarian governments made genuflections to high-minded principles in their constitutions, but rarely obeyed these power-limiting dictates. Even the governments of free nations regularly ignore facets of their constitutions that prove inconvenient. "On paper, many Arab states have liberal constitutions," writes Ivan Eland of the Independent Institute, "but they do not have the political culture or institutions to sustain an open political system." In other words, the fuss about the Iraqi constitution might be much ado about nothing. If the Iraqi government doesn't abide by the limitations its constitution demands of it, the constitution won't be worth the paper it is printed on. Whether the lofty promises made by the constitution already render the document of less worth than the paper it is printed on is another question.

Of course if the Iraqi government ignores the precepts of it's constitution said constitution will not matter, that is the case for any constitution in any country in the history of the world. We must then come to the question of whether or not we believe the central government in Iraq will have the necessary power to ignore said precepts and get away with it.

The fierce independence of Iraq's three main ethnicities, along with the federalized nature of this constitution, would lead us to believe that the government will not have that power. When Saddam Hussein tried to do give himself absolute power, he succeeded only in creating a failed state where his government had little power outside of Baghdad.

As to the role of Islam, Iraq's constitution makes less references to Allah, and gives less governing power to Islam than the constitution of any other nation in the region save Israel.

The doomsday naysayers of Iraq are increasingly beginning to look like Chicken Little.

This discussion was floated about a month ago (or so) when the first missed a "deadline" to hammer out a Consitiution and the reality is the same today as it was then.

They don't have the basic concepts why they even need a Constitution, never mind adopt a document stating rules that will mean nothing without an understanding of freedom.

These are people who have been herded for decades and until they learn to be truly independent socially and politically and know what it takes to defend freedom, this thing won't work.

So easy to preach from 8,000 miles away, but... in that region, half the population is under 25. Young people especially often prove hungrier for freedom than those more stuck in their ways. (see an earlier Flynn Files post about those killed trying to defect from East to West Berlin). Cell phones, internet, entrepeneurial opporunity, football (soccer) - give the people what they want, and keep it coming (after getting the water cleaned, electricity turned on, hospitals staffed).

I think of the documentary "Control Room" - in which despite its being accused of being an infomercial for Al Jazeera - that network's producer says quite frankly that he wants to send his kids to college in America.

If they want an Islamic state...ok...? What about this constitution sets them apart from UAE, Saudi, Oman, Yemen, etc, etc.? I don't see why another Arab state would want to look any different than its neighbors, so I can't really see what the fuss is about. What's more important is that the US stay engaged with the country, and maintain some influence over their internal policymaking, such that we don't allow them to foster terrorism and threaten our interests in the region.

All of this hand-wringing really seems to stem from this "close-up" view of how Islam is really applied to the culture and government, and it is certainly disturbing. But it's nothing we didn't already know from looking at how it's applied in Saudi, is it? The only difference is that we allow the Saudis to play us for suckers, and we have no real influence in that country. Hopefully our relationship with Iraq will be diffferent.

Send Iraq our Constitution...we're not using it.

I don't appreciate that last comment. Different factions may be abusing parts of it, but we're still using it.

Homer, Iraq's constitutions makes DRAMATICALLY less referances to Islam and gives DRAMATICALLY less governing authority to Islam than the constitution of any other nation in the region, save Israel.

asdf, sorry but I don't see any proof of your assertion that they lack a political culture necessary for democracy. When they don't like something, I see them out in the streets, protesting. When an election was held, I saw them pouring out in huge numbers. The election turn out for the constitutional referendum and the december elections will also likely be massive.

America has largely been non-interferent with the political process in Iraq. We aided in constructing the Ruling Council, we provide military security for them, and we give them advice. But largey, all of Iraq's considerable political process over the last two years has been progress made by Iraqis, not Americans.

I am franky tired of blindly accepting the "Iraqis don't know how democracy works" assertion when it seems to be a basically false statement.

BEN.....

....I heard you the first time.

The irony here is that at least one blogger, don't remember which, has compared an earlier version to the Afghanistan constitution and stated (paraphrased), "They may as well have photocopied it and just changed the name of the country. Why its OK for Afghanistan to write one that says these things, but everyone seems to think Iraq will turn into a new Iran using a nearly identical one, I just don't understand, except perhaps that the west simply hates the Iraqi war so much that it blinds them to reality." I tend to think he was right in this. The otherwise appropriate hatred of Bush, irritation over the incompetence shown in dealing with problems before they happened (a lot of that also Bush's fault, since he insisted they wouldn't happen), the understandable distrust of 'any' claims made by the current administration, the fact that the DOD took two years to start reporting actual facts about successes and rebuilding of the sort that bloggers like Chrenkoff have from day one *and* the continued incompetence of Bush to give us facts, instead of repeating useless rhetoric, ****has**** distorted people's perceptions of what is actually happening. Its not a suprise that no one even bothers to compare what they consider a 'success', with something they insist is a 'failure' and realize they both came up with much the same solution for a democratic goverenment.

Frankly, Bush thinks 'way' too much like a religious person, so thinks success will justify everything, so justification 'before' complete success is less important than continually repeating what the final goal is. This is stupid, but not surprising. Its exactly how all people with a far firmer grasp of religion than logic think. Short term failure is irrelevant, just as short term success is irrelevant, the 'goal' is justification in and of itself. The fact that, as I said, the DOD didn't bother to report much until recently and military logic has consisted of, "Tell the guy who saw it to keep it secret, then later release an incomplete report to a guy sitting in a green zone hotel, then let them decide if its important.", hasn't helped.

Think about it. Lets say some major leader of the insurgents have a note intercepted that reads, "We are losing. If the vote happens, we are lost. We need to make a greater offort to stop it." Three days later, after the military has exhausted its attempts to find the letter writter, they release a report saying the got a letter that says that the insurgents plan to increase activity to stop the vote. This **is** what the *military* considers important, so its what the press eventually ends up with. The rest gets lost, because its not relevant to the military situation in the short term and by the time the military press corpse gets around to reporting details to the press, much of the content is lost. This is only a made up example, but its not far from what happened a while ago, when an Al Queda message was intercepted, and the press, when any did report it, stuck it on page 6, and got the central message that Al Queda admitted they were losing almost completely wrong.

" I kept silent for days on the Zarqawi-letter dispatch, ready to post what was probably the single most important piece of insider information to drop into our hands in quite some time. I requested clearance several times per day, each time being asked to hold back. I complied.

But then, without even giving the leaders at Deuce Four a head's up, a typically entralling military press release went out to major, mainstream, media outlets. We all learned of it on CNN. The Zarqawi-letter story was almost unrecognizable. Because, in the hands of a network that hasn't had a body in the field in Mosul long enough to get their bearings, the best the media could do is paraphrase the military press release. So what should have been a front page banner headline story ended up buried on page 6.

Even CNN couldn't grasp the importance of the letter. They ended up giving more coverage to the impending E-Bay auction of Jennifer Aniston's old love letters than to the missive in which the top Al Queda leader in Mosul writes to the second most wanted man in the world, and describes in amazing detail the weaknesses and impending collapse of the terrorist network in Mosul and surrounds. Only then, did the military ask if I wanted to write about the letter."

http://michaelyon.blogspot.com/2005/08/proximity-delays.html

So, Iraq clones Afghanistans constitution, without realizing it, and because of the incompetence of everyone from the president to the press itself, everyone screams, "Its the new Iran", solely based on their blind and unintentionally ignorant hatred of everything that happened in between. I am not impressed by this sort of paranoia

To answer the question posed:NO the Iraq constitution will not matter to any Americans. Iraq has not mattered to anyone for about 1400 years. They have been on a loosing streak since they discovered algebra. What ever happened to having the Iraqis and their oil reserves pay for this mess? Lets put up the Texaco sign, turn on the pumps and get out.

Putting a powerful, influential, liberal democracy in the heart of the Middle East will go a huge way towards winning the War on Terror.

If Lebanon goes well, we have the chance to have not one but two such nations.

I would hope winning the War on Terror matters to Americans.

Right on, Sarge