Thursday August 25, 2005

I've Been Thinking:

All this critique of the future Iraqi constitution shows how little people really understand the region.

On the issue of Islamic law--
No evolving democracy in Iraq, or anywhere in the Arab world, could be transformed into a Jeffersonian democracy.
Islam is not just a religion- it is a culture, a worldview, the basic unifying force for believers.

The drafters of the Iraqi constitution will base their document on principles held sacred by Islam just the way Jefferson did. The role of Christianity is implicitly understood in the establishment of America and it is for that reason that the official day of rest became "Sunday The Sabbath Day" and that principles like "in God we trust" resonate so prominently.

On the issue of the Islamification of Iraq -
I just do not see it happening.
The vast majority of Iraqi people, even clerics, do not want an Iran in Iraq.
Neither do they want a totally secular state.

The task confronting Iraq today is meshing Islamic cultural ideals with democratic doctrine. It can be done. That is how Judaism informs Israel's democracy. It is the way Christianity informed the founding of the United States.

Iraq's success depends on the blending of the best of both worlds -- not the worst of each.