Liberal Talk Radio

We’ve been remiss in talking about the Iraqi constitutional process, I realize. I find it fascinating, and I’m eager to suss it out. Hopefully on next week’s broadcast we’ll be able to organize some of our thoughts and give some feedback on this amazing process. In the meantime, Fred Kaplan has the money quote today:

Islam may not be incompatible with democracy, but Locke and Montesquieu take you there more directly.

Kaplan discusses some similarities and differences between Philadelphia 1787 and Baghdad 2005. My first reaction, which he doesn’t directly address: is the issue of Sharia Law in the constitution similar to America’s debates on slavery? i.e., will the Assembly in Baghdad “kick the can down the road,” the way that the Founding Fathers punted (for the sake of national unity) with the three-fifths compromise? If so, then it might mean that Iraq will still devolve into a bloody civil war, but on the plus side it would take four score and seven years to happen. I’ll take it!

Update!: Read to the end of the article before you post, Bruno!!

The American delegates punted their problem by agreeing that no amendment to ban slavery would be so much as considered until at least 1808. Some observers are now suggesting that the Iraqis do much the same with the question of Islamic law—defer the issue until later and, meanwhile, let each region or province find its own way.

There are those who oppose a deferral, noting that the Philadelphia evasion unraveled, triggering the Civil War of 1861-65. I would say this: If the Baghdad delegates hammer out a deal that might spark an Iraqi civil war 74 years from now, they should sign it at once. The bigger worry—which Bush’s analogies to the American Constitution do nothing to address—is how to avoid civil war in the coming months.

Heh. I guess Kaplan and I are on the same page.