Islam May Get Bigger Role in Iraq

Qassim Abdul-Zahra, The Associated Press:

The United States is pressuring Kurds to accept demands of majority Shiites and Sunnis on the role of Islam in government in order to reach agreement on a draft constitution, a Kurdish official taking part in the negotiations said early Saturday.

Those demands would give the Muslim religion a bigger role in Iraqi society at the expense of women's rights and civil liberties, said the official, who refused to allow his name to be used because of the sensitivity of the issue. READ MORE

He told The Associated Press that Kurdish leaders who support more secular policies are bowing to American pressure - dropping among other things their demand for self-determination, or the right to secede.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman said he was not aware of results of the latest round of talks, which started Friday and were continuing into Saturday morning. If the Kurdish claims are true, it would appear the United States wants to please the Shiite majority in order to get a draft charter finished by the Monday night deadline.

In Washington, the Bush administration canceled a planned telephone briefing for reporters because of what a State Department official described as intense and busy negotiations in Baghdad that include U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.

Kurds make up between 15 and 20 percent of Iraq's population, compared to an estimated 60 percent for Shiites.

Yet many Kurds believe the Americans owe them a debt because the Kurds allowed U.S. military officials to operate in their self-ruled territory before the 2003 invasion of Iraq and Kurdish militia fought alongside U.S. troops during the opening weeks of the conflict.

Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders have been holding lengthy talks for days trying to draft the country's new constitution to meet the deadline. Shiite and Sunni Arabs, who make about 80 percent of Iraq's population, have been demanding a greater role for Islam in the state.

The Kurdish official said the Americans were pressuring the Kurds into accepting Shiite demands calling for all Iraqis to be subject to the religious traditions of their sect in civil affairs.

This would likely disappoint secular women, because according to Islam, men can easily divorce them and women receive only half of what men would inherit.

The official said the Kurds had no objection to declaring Islam as the state religion but wanted it as one source of legislation. He said it now appeared that Islam would be a main source and no law could contradict its rules.

U.S. officials have in the past changed strategy in Iraq at the insistence of the powerful Shiite clergy, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

In 2003, the Americans were pressing for a constitutional committee of experts to draft a new national charter but shelved the plan after al-Sistani insisted it be written by elected officials.

The former U.S. governor of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, had proposed that members of parliament be chosen by a series of regional caucuses. That idea also was scrapped at al-Sistani's insistence, and elections were held instead last January.