Global Policy Forum

By Alex Berenson

For seven months, the United States has tried to finesse two crucial questions about the future of Iraq: How much control will the country's Shiite majority have over the drafting of a constitution? And how Islamic will that constitution be? The answers could determine whether Iraq becomes a multiparty democracy, an Islamic theocracy, or even slides into civil war. Last week, those questions took on a new urgency. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most important Shiite religious leader in Iraq and probably the most powerful local leader of any kind, said he opposed the American plan to turn over power to an Iraqi government next year without direct elections.

Ayatollah Sistani has vast influence over Iraq's 15 million Shiites, and so far he has urged them to show patience with the occupation. But he has insisted that delegates elected by popular vote write Iraq's constitution and approve its new government. "No one has the right to appoint the members of the constitutional assembly," he said several weeks ago, in a statement in response to written questions. "We see no alternative but to go back to the people for choosing their representatives."

That view has opened a rift between the Shiite majority, roughly 60 percent of Iraq's population, and the Sunnis and Kurds, each about 20 percent of the population. (The Kurds, who dominate northern Iraq, are themselves Sunni Muslim but have little in common with the Arab Sunnis, who ran Iraq under Saddam Hussein and are usually referred to only as Sunnis.) Nor can the United States afford to ignore the Shiite position, analysts say. The Shiite leaders "have a tremendous amount of clout," said Kenneth Katzman, senior Iraq analyst for the Congressional Research Service. "They can set off major, major demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of people at the drop of a hat."

In addition, it is unclear whether the United States, whose motives for invading Iraq are regarded with skepticism by many, will feel it can oppose a clear call for popular democracy — exactly what the United States said it wanted to bring to Iraq.

The United States and the American-appointed Governing Council agreed on Nov. 15 that council members and local governments would choose an assembly next June to pick an interim Iraqi government. That government would then draft a constitution. The process would probably mute the influence of Ayatollah Sistani and the other three Shiite grand ayatollahs who live in Najaf, about 100 miles south of Baghdad. On Wednesday, however, Ayatollah Sistani, through a spokesman, said he would not support an interim government unless it was elected by a direct vote. In an effort to reach a compromise, Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish president of the Governing Council, traveled Thursday to Najaf to meet with the ayatollah.

A senior coalition official in Iraq, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Friday that the American-led coalition was not opposed in principle to direct elections but did not believe it could be ready to conduct one by June. But the official noted that the coalition would not automatically approve direct elections even if the procedural problems could be worked out. "It would be something we would talk about," he said.

But finding a compromise may be difficult. Mr. Hussein, a Sunni, impoverished much of Shiite southern Iraq, and jailed or killed many Shiite leaders. Now the Shiites want power to match their numbers — which is precisely what the Kurds and Sunnis fear. In addition, the United States is concerned that many of Iraq's Shiite clerics are supported by the anti-American Iranian theocracy.

To make sure their followers understand the issue, Shiite clerics across the south have for months proselytized about the importance of the constitution, while mosques offer worshipers pamphlets explaining the subject.

Then there is the constitution itself. However they are chosen, Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish delegates will have to balance the conservatism of the Shiites with the relative liberalism of Sunnis and Kurds. Critical questions include the rights of women; whether senior clerics can overrule laws passed by an elected parliament; and how closely Iraqi law will follow the Koranic Sharia law. "We totally allow women to go and work," Sheik Ali al-Najafi, the son of and spokesman for Bashir al-Najafi, one of the grand ayatollahs, said in an interview last month. "But to work in jobs that respect their dignity." The Shiite ayatollahs say they want any constitution to be based closely on Islamic law, while still respecting individual and minority rights. What that means in practice is less clear, and may not be entirely to the liking of the United States.

Ayatollah Sistani has said constitution should guarantee individual liberties as long as they are consistent "with the religious facts and the social values of the Iraqi people." At the same time, he said elected leaders, not clerics, should have the final authority to make laws in a democratic Iraq. "The authority will be for the people who will get the majority of votes," he said in response to questions last month.

Bridging the gap between Islamic values and Western views of human rights will not be easy, said Noah Feldman, an assistant professor at New York University and expert on Islamic law who is advising Iraq on the drafting process. But Mr. Feldman said he believed the clerics would not demand an Iranian-style theocracy. "It's going to be tricky and it's delicate, but it's going to be solvable, because in the end the Shia clerics are open to a state that's a democratic state but is also respectful of Islam," Mr. Feldman said. "No one around Sistani is saying, `Rule of the clerics.' "

Perhaps not, but the coalition official acknowledged that the coalition would have little control over an elected assembly and that it might result in a government unfriendly to the United States. "There are some people who I think are on principle have concern about the Shias," he said. Still, the coalition has little choice but to move quickly to hand over power to Iraqis, he said. "No one likes an occupation."

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