The Foreign Service Journal, March 2004

ply geographic subdivisions, like the present 18 provinces, not terri- tories to which particular ethnic or religious groups lay a claim. The Kurds, on the other hand, view federalism as a system that would guarantee the autonomy of Kurd- istan, which they see not as anoth- er administrative subdivision of the country but as the homeland of the Kurdish nation. The Coalition Provisional Authority has already been forced to accept that the Kurds will retain their present de facto autonomy for the time being, realizing that unless the Kurds get what they want, the entire transition process would stall. Thus, agreeing on a permanent design for the federal system is the major institutional challenge Iraq faces. Some democratic values are accepted, at least in theory, by all major political players. No significant party openly contests the proposition that all citizens, including women, should have equal rights, and that political and civil liberties should be safeguarded. In practice, however, these democratic values are chal- lenged by the determination of some political players to root the state in Islam and by the creeping practice of group representation that has become the norm under the American occupation. The issue of the relation of Islam to the state is a delicate matter in Iraq. Although some Iraqis, and certainly the United States, would prefer a secular state, it is a foregone conclusion that the constitution will have to recognize that Iraq is a Muslim country. Such recognition will open up the question of whether Islamic law, the sharia, should underpin the entire legal system of modern Iraq. How much the country will be dominated by Islamic values rather than democratic ones is a question that will be deter- mined much more by election results than by what is written in the constitution. The fact that some Shia clerics have already emerged as major political fig- ures and Sunni clerics have responded by organizing their own shura council shows that there will be a complicated relationship and much tension between democratic and Islamic values in Iraq. Political Facts of Life Finally, a tension is emerging in Iraq between the ideal of democracy based on individual rights and a system that gives de facto recognition to group rights. This is an issue that has received insufficient attention to date, but that is likely to become more prominent in the future because group representation and group rights have become a fact of life under the American occupation. The United States rejects the concept of group rights and fights against the inclusion of any provi- sions implying recognition of group rights in any inter- national convention or agreement. However, in trying to introduce some semblance of representation for Iraqis under the occupation, the United States turned to a form of group representation. The Governing Council has been meticulously crafted to provide rep- resentation for all ethnic and religious groups (and at least a token presence for women), as have local and provincial councils. Such an ethnic and confessional balancing act may have been inevitable under the circumstances, but it has created a precedent that may have lasting conse- quences for Iraq. Already, Iraqi politics is discussed even in the United States in terms of the size of ethnic and religious groups rather than the strength of politi- cal parties. For example, commentators invariably suggest that elections in Iraq would lead to Shia dom- ination, because the Shia represent about 60 percent of the population. Yet the fact that there are many political parties in Iraq, including several Shia Islamist parties and at least at least one Shia secular party, does not figure in most discussion of probable election out- comes. But the most difficult obstacle to democracy in Iraq is neither institutions nor values, although both pose considerable challenges. Rather, it is the balance of power. Is there a sufficient array of political forces to ensure that the country will not fall again under the control of one strong man or one political party? The considerable number of parties in the Governing Council and outside it, coupled with the emergence of F O C U S 40 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 0 4 A tension is emerging in Iraq between the ideal of democracy based on individual rights and a system that gives de facto recognition to group rights.