The New and Improved Iraq
Administration officials are going ga-ga over Iraq's new constitution. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, for example, has said:
This interim constitution includes as its cornerstone a bill of rights that provides protection of individual rights that are unprecedented in the history of Iraq, and indeed the region.
But as Patrick Clawson (Deputy Director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy) argues in a recent paper, Iraq's new constitution is not unprecedented in the history of Iraq or of the region. Many Arab countries have rights to free speech, religion and proper judicial process guaranteed by their constitutions. In fact, Iraq's Ba'ath constitution guaranteed some basic rights for Iraq's citizens -- rights that Saddam proceeded to violate, of course.
What really matters, according to Clawson, is whether and to what extent the constitution is implemented. And that depends, in turn, on lots of contingencies.
Without stability and the right structual features in place, the new Iraqi constitution isn't worth the paper it's written on.
Postscript: Another odd aspect of the new constitution is that it guarantees women to no less than 25% of the seats in the National Assembly (as Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao repeats like a mantra).
I have nothing against women being in the National Assembly, of course.
But on what authority does the Coalition mandate this quota for Iraq, when only approximately 14% of the U.S. Congressional membership is female (and approximately18% of the British House of Commons)?
And will this undermine the perceived authority of the new constitution and National Assembly among the Iraqi public?
12:32:25 AM 
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