WHAT IF REAL DEMOCRACY REARS ITS HEAD?
By Ian Urbina

HONG KONG (The Asia Times) When administrators sit down in Baghdad to draft a constitution for the new country and turn toward holding elections, they will likely run into the thorny issue of what role to grant religion in the state. After years of repression, religious fervour is swelling in post war Iraq. On the local level, especially in the Shi'ite south, it is often clerics and religious groups (not US forces) who have stepped forward to fill the void and restore order while providing basic social services.

If elections are truly fair and open, there is a real possibility that Islamist parties backed by these clerics will hold considerable sway in the post-Saddam Hoseyn era. Washington's reaction on the matter will determine whether its true goal is democracy or not. Either the administration of George W Bush will opt to craft the constitution and slant the electoral playing field so as to guarantee a secular pro-Western government, or it will lean strictly toward transparent and clean elections, come what may.

It's anyone's guess how this issue will play out. But one voice within the administration in Baghdad clearly leans toward putting full US faith in strict democracy. Noah Feldman is a law professor from New York University and is advising the future Iraqi interim authority on how to design a new constitution. He is under the auspices of retired US General Jay Garner - Iraq's current de facto leader - in the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance. Last week, Feldman held a number of underreported interviews in which he expressed his clear preference for letting democracy run its course, even if this means voters going to the polls and rejecting Western-style secular liberalism.

In Feldman's book After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy, he argues that one of the biggest problems with US policy in the region over the years has been a Machiavellian willingness to support thugs so long as they were pro-American. According to Feldman, ever since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, the United States has been so afraid that other anti-American Islamists would take over that Washington has been willing to prop up dictatorships and monarchies in countries such as Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

"Western governments that pride themselves on their own democratic character ... embrace dictators for reasons of short-term self-interest, forgetting that in the long run the support of autocracy undermines their own democratic values and makes enemies of the people who are being oppressed with Western complicity." It is hardly a new critique, but it is significant for its timeliness and considering that it is coming from someone who may have weighty influence in the political modeling of reconstructed Iraq.

For Feldman, who was raised an Orthodox Jew in Boston, there is nothing incompatible about Islam and democratization. As a scholar of the religion, Feldman frequently turns to the Koran to back up his perspective with proof of solidly based democratic roots in the holy book. He also points out that many Islamic thinkers these days argue that democratic thought actually draws its first historic roots from early Islam. The original leaders in Islamic communities were supposed to be chosen by the people. The Koran says these leaders are also supposed to consult with the people.

Whether Feldman will be a lone (and perhaps relatively powerless) voice among US planners in Baghdad is still unclear. In interviews, he cited comments by White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, who said that Turkey's Islamic democracy was a good model for the region.

Still, there may be some check mechanisms that will have to be implemented so as to prevent external and religious meddling from governments such as that in Iran. Feldman conceded that it might be necessary to have laws preventing foreign funding of elections.

For Feldman an Islamist government is not by definition prone toward being harsh and backward like the Taliban. His vision seems to be one in which a space is opened up for an Islamic equivalent of European-style parties like the Christian Democrats. Just as in Turkey, moderate Islamists can hold considerable strength with no intention of trying to cut civil liberties, or impose classic Islamic law on every aspect of life.

If pure democracy were given a chance in Iraq, in the short run it might produce a government that is strongly critical of the United States. But in the long run, such a gesture would begin putting the US on the side of the masses and working democracy rather than on the self-interested side of dictators and a radicalisation of Islamist parties. ENDS DEMOCRACY FOR IRAQ 7503

Highlights, phonetisation and editing are by IPS