Unsettled in Iraq

"THE MOST telling reaction to the draft Iraqi constitution has come not from Crawford, Texas, but from Tehran. There, the head of Iran's Guardian Council hailed the document. ''After years of struggle," Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said, ''an Islamic state has come to power." That is a more accurate description of the potential of the document than President Bush provided Sunday in praising its ''far-reaching protections for human freedoms." As much as the Bush administration wants the Iraqi people to adopt a constitution and take over the fight against the insurgents, US officials must have misgivings about a document that Iran welcomes.

Basic human and democratic rights are given lip service in the document. But it also states that Islam is the country's official religion, that it will be ''a basic source of legislation," and that no law can be passed that violates ''the undisputed rules" of the Islamic faith. The draft says that judges on Iraq's highest court should include experts in Islamic law, suggesting that Muslim clerics would sit on it. It is no surprise that an Iranian official should be pleased by the document, especially since it would facilitate the formation of a powerful region in southern Iraq that, like Iran, would be mainly Shiite."
Boston.com