Iraq's new descent into tyranny.

ITEM: The New York Times editorial for August 23 under the headline "Iraq's Unsettling Constitution" acknowledged: "The draft constitution given to Iraq's national assembly last night does little to advance the prospect for a united and peaceful Iraq.... Americans continue dying in Iraq, but their mission creeps steadily downward. The nonexistent weapons of mass destruction dropped out of the picture long ago. Now the United States seems ready to walk away from its fine words about helping the Iraqis create a beacon of freedom, harmony and democracy for the Middle East. All that remains to be seen is whether the White House has become so desperate for an excuse to declare victory that it will settle for an Iranian-style Shiite theocracy."

AHEAD OF THE CURVE: The Establishment is gradually acknowledging the fact that the Iraq war, occupation, and newly proposed Iraqi Constitution represent a step backward for Iraq--perhaps even from Saddam Hussein's horrible tyranny.

But who could have predicted that Iraq would become an Iranian-style Shiite theocracy back in 2003 when the United States invaded Iraq?

THE NEW AMERICAN did, reporting in its May 19, 2003 issue: "The condition of Christians under Saddam's reign illustrates that while that regime was brutal and highly authoritarian, it was not 'totalitarian,' in the full sense of the term. Saddam and his henchmen devised perversely inventive ways to torture and kill political dissidents, and the exalted likeness of the 'Dear Leader' was pervasive, but Saddam did little to disrupt, reform, or destroy private institutions and customs. Avak Asadourian, Iraq's Armenian archbishop, told the April 21st Christian Science Monitor that 'we enjoyed total religious freedom and there was no religious discrimination' under Saddam's rule. This may change if Iranian-style revolutionary Islam takes root in Iraq--a development that may be unavoidable if 'democracy' is planted there at bayonet point." (Emphasis added.)

This prediction, sadly, is coming true, just as other predictions in the same article, entitled "What Did We Win?," have already come true. We reported: "Our military victory has left our nation saddled with the prospect of a long, bloody, expensive occupation, and an escalating terrorist threat."

The record number of American soldiers killed in terrorist incidents in Iraq during the month of August is bloody testimony to the accuracy of THE NEW AMERICAN'S assessment.

Of course, the staff of THE NEW AMERICAN needed no gift of prophecy to make the predictions it did on Iraq. The results are the natural end of an unprovoked war and occupation of a proud Islamic nation with no tradition of ordered liberty.

Many have still not given up the lost cause of asserting that Iraq's new constitution will bring a wave of freedom for Iraqis and peoples across the Middle East. President Bush is still comparing the Iraqi Constitution and its drafters to America's Constitution and its Founding Fathers. "Like our own nation's founders over two centuries ago," the president said in his August 26 radio address, "the Iraqis are grappling with difficult issues, such as the role of the federal government.... The establishment of a democratic constitution in Iraq, just like the establishment of a constitution in Afghanistan last year, will be a landmark event in the history of the broader Middle East." And the Bush administration's Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, praised the new draft Iraqi Constitution as "one of the most enlightened constitutions in the world, second to perhaps one or two others."

The proposed Iraqi Constitution certainly employs plenty of pleasant-sounding platitudes similar to the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. However, so did the Soviet Constitution, which consolidated tyranny. The draft Iraqi Constitution contains few, if any, real protections for individual rights because of numerous "exceptions" clauses that negate the rights putatively protected in the document. Even without the provisions of Islamic law that are embedded in the proposed Iraqi Constitution, it is so bad that had a foreign government sought to impose this constitution on the United States back in 1787, the Founding Fathers would undoubtedly have considered it an act of war.

Khalilzad minimized his own role in drafting the Iraqi Constitution, stating: 'I am not going to them with a recipe for what their constitution ought to be." But Kurdish delegate Mahmoud Othman told the August 13 Washington Post that "The Americans say they don't intervene, but they have intervened deep.... They gave us a detailed proposal, almost a full version of a constitution." Despite Khalilzad's protestations, numerous press reports from the Iraqi delegates prove that the Bush administration clearly wielded great influence over the drafting of the charter.

Any honest analysis of the text of the current draft Iraqi Constitution would conclude that the document offers no protection of individual rights while proposing a large helping of socialism, big government, and state interference in the family. Thus, the new constitution proposed is the opposite of the U.S. Constitution.