Can Iraqis govern themselves? Or are skeptics correct that some people just aren't cut out for democracy?
Iraqis seeking democracy scored two triumphs in the first week of March and now face a crucial test.
The triumphs served the democratic essentials of rule of law and acceptance of compromise.
On Mar. 1, the Iraqi Governing Council approved an interim constitution to accommodate self-governance until elections become practicable, possibly next year.
Called the Transitional Administration Law, the document asserts important rights, such as freedom of speech and religion, while deferring decisions on divisive issues like Kurdish autonomy.
When signed, the document will provide a legal framework for the interim Iraqi government set to take power June 30. It's important, too, for asserting individual freedom in a generally oppressed region and for evolving out of difficult negotiation and compromise.
Negotiation, however, must continue. Before a scheduled signing on Mar. 5, five members of the 25-person council said they wouldn't support the interim constitution without changes needed to satisfy Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, leader of the country's Shiite majority.
Although a setback, the maneuver didn't have to mean the end of progress. Earlier, Sistani withdrew demands for immediate elections. And the last-minute challenge didn't threaten a crucial product of compromise in the agreed-but-unsigned constitution: a stipulation that Islamic law be a source and guide of Iraqi law but not the only one. Especially after those compromises, it hardly seems unreasonable for the Shiite leader—representing the majority, after all—to assert the electoral prerogatives of the country's largest group.
Commitment of the Shiite leadership to negotiation apparently survived the Mar. 2 terrorist massacres of Shiites in a Baghdad suburb and the holy city of Karbala. The attacks occurred during the Shiite holy days of Ashura.
Terrorists see Iraqi Shiism as a powder keg beneath the democratic progress they abhor. That's the test. If Iraqi Shiites and the people with whom they share a country stay on the path to freedom, whatever the sacrifice, they will defeat both a murderous enemy and the inhumane insistence of skeptics that some groups are unsuited to democracy.
(Online Mar. 5, 2004; author's e-mail: [email protected])
