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Shakka:
| quote: | | While I'm sure the U.S. wouldn't condone it and would probably try to pursuade them otherwise--ultimately I believe the administration is committed to giving the Iraqis that choice. |
"If you're suggesting, how would we feel about an Iranian-type government with a few clerics running everything in the country, the answer is: That isn't going to happen." - Donald Rumsfeld (April 24, 2003).
There's also been a lot of wrangling over the role religion will play in the new Iraqi constitution. The US went to a lot of effort to ensure that - against the will of the majority of Iraqi people - that Islam wasn't constitutionally enshrined as the national religion of Iraq:
| quote: | As Iraq writes a new constitution in the coming months, one word will be key: Allah.
Some congressional Republicans worry that the country will shed its secular history and officially turn into an Islamic state, with a constitution that says Islam is its national religion.
To try to steer Baghdad's constitutional process away from establishing an official Islamic state, two lawmakers, Sen. Sam Brownback (R., Kan.) and Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.), tucked freedom-of-religion provisions into the Senate and House versions of legislation that would send almost $87 billion to Iraq.
The provisions would instruct the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority to work with Iraq to make sure the new constitution contains specific language to protect religious freedom. While each chamber's version differs slightly, compromise language is expected to pass Congress this week along with the overall $87 billion spending bill. |
http://www.constitutioncenter.org/e...wire/9634.shtml
Must be the first time Republicans have ever funded an initiative aimed at reducing the scope of religion in government. Maybe now they'll push for greater church / state separation at home as well? 
In the end, a compromise was reached, though the relationship between Islamic law and eventual Iraqi law is still not clear:
| quote: | | The relationship between religious law and individual liberty remains unclear. Islam is to be relied on as "a source" for Iraqi laws, and the constitution states that no law may contradict either Islamic law or the guarantees of individual rights. This was a compromise between those urging that Islam be regarded as "the source," implying that Islamic sharia’ law should be the sole basis for new laws, and those, especially women, concerned that Islamic law would undermine the constitution’s individual rights. Islam was also identified as the state religion of Iraq (similar to most Arab constitutions), though religious freedom included in the individual rights. U.S. officials including Paul Bremer had already announced they would veto any constitution that in their view would make Iraq an "Islamic state." |
http://www.alternatives.ca/article1171.html
(That entire article is actually a good summary of the Iraqi constitution, for those interested.)
In any case, the way that power in the new Iraqi government will be split up, will still ensure that despite making up about 60% of the Iraqi population, the Shiites (the most religious and unpredictable of the main ethnic / religious groups in Iraq) will not be able to enforce any agenda upon Iraq. The balance of power will still be tipped in favour of the Sunnis.
NYCTrancefan:
| quote: | | Don't you know that many conservatives are under the impression that they can control the actions of people the world over by simple application of military power and their own ideologies. |
It's called cultural hegemony. That's essentially what the Neo-Cons are all about (just read the PNAC website for Christ's sake :-/).
| quote: | | I heard a retarted commentary by a conservative woman who has a radio show on the other day use this argument "Between Bush and Kerry who would the terrorists be more scared of" |
The irony is that Bush's single-minded, unilateral, aggressively hegenomic approach to foreign affairs is a greater advertisement to terrorist groups than even the weakest possible president (which Kerry certainly isn't) could ever be. His aggression against Islamic states just fosters fundamentalist thought and drives young Islamic men towards militant extremism. I mean more Americans have died from terrorist attacks in 2003 and 2004 than in any other year in history except 2001 - shouldn't that tell you something about the idiocy of the War on Terror as it is currently being waged? As you quite rightly point out, you can't scare someone into submission when they aren't even afraid of dying and Iraq is a far bigger terrorist threat now (due to all the terrorist groups that flooded over the borders as soon as Baghdad fell) than it was prior to the latest Iraqi war. How people fail to see this and to see what a gigantic waste of resources the conflict was - in the context of the war on terror - just boggles the mind.
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http://eschatonnow.blogspot.com/
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what good has he done to this world??Do Americans feel safer having a business who doenst know sit about the world running their country??
