I have generally had a moderate to good impression of Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution, to which Iraq’s current prime minister also belongs. Perhaps this is because when I have seen Hakim it has mainly been on Al-Jazeera, where he appears with other commentators, most of whom are yelling about how much they want to kill Americans, so he comes off as an epitome of reason and tolerance. But I think right now he is on the course of promoting an idea which is really bad.

Hakim is advocating that the Iraqi constitution, which they are under deadline to agree upon, include a federal region for the Shia in the south and center of Iraq. I watched an excerpt of a major speech he gave today on Al-Jazeera, and Arabic readers can check out this Al-Sharq al-Awsat article for more details. Despite the title of the article, which only mentions the south, it quotes Hakim as saying that the Shia federal unit should also include the center area as well. It notes that “the proposal is opposed by representatives of the Arab Sunnis and some other minorities, as well as the secular Shia.” It is not, apparently, opposed by the Kurds, who would surely see it as a boost to their own claims to autonomy, which are pretty extreme. Today KurdishMedia.com lists this news report on the Shia at the top of it homepage (at least as I write this).

This is a really bad idea; it would only accentuate the trends toward sectarianization and ethnic balkanization in the country. It seems at least that even the Shia leaders of the government are rejecting it (although some of them are members of Hakim’s party). Since the Kurds are going to have some autonomy, it is understandable that other regions might demand the same, but this is a dangerous precedent. The Shia are the majority in the country and will lead the new state. They say that this is necessary to protect their rights, but as the majority they can do so through the central institutions of the state. Furthermore, this scheme would leave Shia minorities standed inside a Sunni-dominated federal state – another invitation to conflict.

The other major issue raised was the role of Islam in the new constitutional order, and Hakim insisted that Islam should be the “basis” for law, that nothing “contradict its principles.” I am generally strongly skeptical of any Islamist agenda because Islamic law, according to the traditional understanding, has no concept of popular sovereignty and contains a variety of structural features inimical to pluralism internally and coexistence externally.

That said, I’m more willing to give the Iraqi Shia some slack because I’ve followed the statements, and more importantly the actions, of their leader, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, and I’ve come to have a lot of confidence in him. Sistani believes that Iraq should be an Islamic republic, but by word and deed has shown that he believes this to be a truly pluralistic republic, unlike the one next door in Iran. This article in the Iraqi newspaper Al-Bawaba cites Hakim as quoting Sistani as saying that “the constitution must guarantee the unity of Iraq, the role of Islam and the rights of all factions.” (Even if you don’t read Arabic, it has a picture of Hakim if you don’t know what he looks like.) I’m not nearly as pessimistic as the mainstream media on the situation in Iraq, but I have to say that without a Shia leader like Sistani over the past two years, the United States would really be in a lot of trouble in that country.

There are some who would take this a step further and argue that reforming Islamists are the only ones in the Muslim world who can bring real democracy, not secular Muslims. I’m open to the argument for now without really being convinced by it, since there have yet to be any successful examples of this model, although Iraq shows signs of becoming the first. Those who argue for the compatibility of Islam and democracy often give Turkey, Indonesia and Malaysia as examples, forgetting perhaps that Turkey and Indonesia suppressed Islamic law to allow for political pluralism, and that Malaysia isn’t a democracy. What is needed for the Islamic democracy thesis is an example of Islamist reformers who can found a genuine example. I won’t say its not possible, but we’re still waiting for the first.

Contributed by Kirk H. Sowell of Window on the Arab World, and More!