BUSH CAVES IN TO ISLAMIST CONSTITUTION FOR IRAQ -- AND THE U.S. PRESS MISSES THE STORY
by Doug Ireland
Senior Contributing Editor
Doug Ireland
Visit Doug Ireland on the web at his site,
Direland
Doug Ireland is PageOneQ's Senior Contributing
Edtior.
He is a longtime radical political journalist
and media critic and a former columnist
for the Village
Voice, the New
York Observer, New
York magazine, the Parisian
daily Libération
and other papers, and writes for a variety
of publications on both sides of the Atlantic,
as well as being a contributing editor
of Poz
magazine and In
These Times
If the Bush administration brokered a deal in Occupied
Iraq to enshrine Islamic law as the guiding principle
of the new Iraqi Constitution, you'd think it would
be headline news in the U.S. media, wouldn't you? Well,
that's what has happened -- yet you can search the Sunday
papers in vain to find this sell-out to the Islamists
clearly portrayed -- or, in some cases, even mentioned.
In a dispatch that Reuters moved at 1:33 P.M. on
Saturday (August 20), the headline reads, "U.S.
concedes ground to Islamists on Iraqi law." "U.S.
diplomats have conceded ground to Islamists on the
role of religion in Iraq, negotiators said on Saturday
as they raced to meet a 48-hour deadline to draft
a constitution under intense U.S. pressure," Reuters
reported. "Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish negotiators
all said there was accord on a bigger role for Islamic
law than Iraq had before.
"But a secular Kurdish politician said Kurds opposed
making Islam 'the,' not 'a,'main source of law --
changing current wording -- and subjecting all legislation
to a religious test. 'We understand the Americans
have sided with the Shi'ites," he said. "It's shocking.
It doesn't fit American values. They have spent so
much blood and money here, only to back the creation
of an Islamist state ... I can't believe that's what
the Americans really want or what the American people
want.'"
Under the soporific headline, "Iraqi
Talks Move Ahead on Some Issues," The Sunday New
York Times did report, under an August 20 Baghdad
deadline, that "Under a deal brokered Friday by the
American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, Islam was to
be named "a primary source of legislation" in the
new Iraqi constitution, with the proviso that no legislation
be permitted that conflicted with the 'universal principles'
of the religion. The latter phrase raised concerns
that Iraqi judges would have wide latitude to strike
down laws now on the books, as well as future legislation.
At the same time, according to a Kurdish leader involved
in the talks, Mr. Khalilzad had backed language that
would have given clerics sole authority in settling
marriage and family disputes. That gave rise to concerns
that women's rights, as they are enunciated in Iraq's
existing laws, could be curtailed. Finally, according
to the person close to the negotiations, Mr. Khalilzad
had been backing an arrangement that could have allowed
clerics to have a hand in interpreting the constitution."
But because of the way the Times presented the story,
it's doubtful that anyone bothered to pay attention
to it or wade into the body of the story to find this
revealing detail.
The Washington Post also put a snooze of a headline
on its Sunday story: "Kurds
Fault U.S. on Iraqi Charter," said the Post header
-- but it's not until the story's fifth paragraph
that one gets to the meat, when the paper reports
that, "The working draft of the constitution stipulates
that no law can contradict Islamic principles. In
talks with Shiite religious parties, Kurdish negotiators
said they have pressed unsuccessfully to limit the
definition of Islamic law to principles agreed upon
by all groups. The Kurds said current language in
the draft would subject Iraqis to extreme interpretations
of Islamic law. Kurds also contend that provisions
in the draft would allow Islamic clerics to serve
on the high court, which would interpret the constitution.
That would potentially subject marriage, divorce,
inheritance and other civil matters to religious law
and could harm women's rights, according to the Kurdish
negotiators and some women's groups."
Moreover, the Post devalued the impact of this information
by relying solely on Kurdish sources. But the Reuters
dispatch also cited one of the main Sunni negotiators
on the Constitution confirming the U.S. sell-out to
the Islamists: "Sunni Arab negotiator Saleh al-Mutlak
also said a deal was struck which would mean parliament
could pass no legislation that 'contradicted Islamic
principles. A constitutional court would rule on any
dispute on that, the Shi'ite official said," Reuters
reported, further quoting the Sunni's Mutlak as saying
"The Americans agreed...."
Given the way the two national U.S. dailies -- which
set the TV news agenda -- played this story, it's
hardly surprising that little George Stephanopolous,
on this morning's ABC political chat show "This Week,"
didn't even bother to raise the question of the U.S.
cave-in to an Islamic Constitution, neither when quizzing
several U.S. Senators (Republicans Allen and Hagel)
and Gov. Bill Richardson on Iraq, nor in the round-table
discussion with journalists which followed.
The Reuters dispatch also contained this useful and
highly relevant reminder, absent from both the Times
and Post reports: that Bush's ambassador to Iraq,
Khalilzad, "helped draft a constitution in his native
Afghanistan that declared it an 'Islamic Republic'
in which no law could contradict Islam." And the Post
story, way down, quoted the Sunni's Mutlak as saying
of Khalilzad, "'His main interest is to push the constitution
on time, no matter what the constitution has in it,''
said Salih Mutlak, a Sunni delegate who has been outspoken
against some compromise proposals. 'No country in
the world can draft their constitution in three months.
They themselves took 10 years,' Mutlak said, referring
to the United States. 'Why do they wish to impose
a silly constitution on us?'" Meanwhile, the AP
reports this morning that the Sunnis say they've
been left out of the negotiations over the Constitution.--
a sure prescription for more violence in Iraq.
Why is the Bush administration strong-arming the
Iraqis into rushing through a new Constitution with
so little time to do craft it? Two reasons: Bush desperately
wants to score a p.r. victory in "the war on terror,"
in which his administration continues to insist that
Iraq is the main front (even though it is the U.S.
occupation of Iraq that is now the main motuivator
for terrorist-style violence); and because failure
to achieve a new Constitution on time would undoubtedly
cause new elections in Iraq -- and the Bushies are
terribly afraid of the Iraqi voters, fearing that
discontent in the country with the U.S. occupation
and its failure to bring either security from violence
or to deliver basics -- like water and electric power--
would lead to the election of a government less maleable
by Washington, thus creating further U.S. domestic
backlash against the Anglo-American occupation of
Iraq. That short-sighted desire for achieving something
that could be sold by Bush's spinmeisters to the American
people as 'progress" in Iraq is what's driven Bush's
man to break arms on behalf of an Islamist Constitution
for Iraq.
The Reuters report cited above is reinfoced by the
coverage in the daily Al-Hayat, cited
by Middle East expert Prof. Juan Cole this morning
on his excellent blog, Informed Content. Cole
writes: "In one of the major disputes outstanding
between the Kurds and the Shiites, on whether Islamic
law will be the fundamental source or only one of
the sources of Iraqi law, the Shiite religious parties
appear to have won out. AFP
reports that the reason for this is that the United
States has swung around and begun to support the primacy
of Islamic canon law.
"Al-Hayat writes, 'Also, an agreement was reached
that Islam is the religion of state, and that no law
shall be enacted that contradicts the agreed-upon
essential verities of Islam. Likewise, the inviolability
of the highest [Shiite] religious authorities in the
land is safeguarded, without any allusion to a detailed
description. The paragraph governing these matters
will specify that Islam is 'the fundamental basis'
for legislation, though there will be an allusion
to the protection of democratic values, human rights,
and social and national values. A Higher Council will
be formed to review new legislation to ensure it does
not contravene the essential verities of the Islamic
religion.' Personal status law, concerning marriage,
divorce, alimony, inheritance, and so forth, will
be adjudicated by religious courts in accordance with
the religion or sect to which the individual belongs."
Prof. Cole also extensively quotes the text of the
Islamic Constitution which U.S. Ambassador Khalilzad
godfathered in Afghanistan. It makes for chilling
reading, especially as an omen of what Khalilzad is
cooking up in Iraq, and you can read it by clicking
here.
In a related development, "The Army is planning
for the possibility of keeping the current number
of soldiers in Iraq — well over 100,000 —
for four more years, the Army’s top general,"
Gen. Peter Schoomaker, said on Satuday in
an interview with AP.
Doug
Ireland may be reached via his blog, DIRELAND
