WASHINGTON, 17 May 2004 — The United States signaled early yesterday its readiness to put up with an Islamic theocracy in future sovereign Iraq, with Secretary of State Colin Powell saying the US administration “will have to accept” any government created as a result of free and fair elections there.
The remark, made in an interview with NBC television, marked a policy reversal for the administration of President George W. Bush, which up to now had vowed to fight tooth and nail any attempt by Iraqi Shiite leaders to follow in the footsteps of their brethren in Iran. The policy of resisting future Islamic rule in Iraq has been repeatedly spelled out by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who stated publicly a year ago that “a vocal minority clamoring to transform Iraq in Iran’s image will not be permitted to do so.”
US occupation authorities have also resisted attempts by Shiite leader Ali Al-Sistani and other leading Shiite clerics to insert clauses in Iraq’s provisional constitution that would have established Islam as the philosophical foundation of future legislative activities.
But asked yesterday if a theocratic government fashioned after the regime in Tehran would be acceptable to Washington now, Powell indicated it was ready to entertain this possibility. “We will have to accept what the Iraqi people decide upon,” he said in comments at the “Meet the Press” program.
The secretary of state cautioned, however, that to gain acceptance around the world, any future Iraqi government will have to respect basic human rights.
He also expressed confidence that after decades of totalitarian rule, the Iraqi people will opt for a true democracy after their sovereignty is restored on June 30.
“Surely, everybody understands it is a nation that rests on the faith of Islam,” Powell said. “But they also know that in order to be successful as a 21st-century country, they have to respect the rights of all individuals and not allow a purely fundamentalist regime to arise in the country,” he continued. “And my sensing of what the Iraqi people want is a democracy.”
The reversal appeared to chart for Iraqi Shiites a path for achieving power without resorting to violence. The group, which represents more than 60 percent of the Iraqi population, had refrained from actively resisting US forces in the early stages of the occupation. But the situation changed in early April, when a militia loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr launched attacks against US troops.
Some US lawmakers and Middle East experts are concerned that, given Shiites’ sheer numbers, a free and fair election in Iraq, which is expected to be held in early 2005, was likely to produce a government dominated by their group.
That concern was also echoed by Powell, who warned that in order to remain a single nation and live in peace, Iraqis “have to have a nation, which understands to role of a majority but respects the role of minorities within the country.” Mindful of the political clout of the Shiites, two prominent US senators urged the Bush administration yesterday to consider bringing forward the date of planned elections, from January to this fall.
Republican John McCain and Democrat Joseph Lieberman wrote in The Washington Post that the United States and the United Nations should move ahead “as quickly as possible with a full plan for democratic elections, one that will ensure that Iraqi liberals can compete fairly in local constituencies with Islamists organized nationally.”
