W is for Women: Iraq Edition

In a move reminiscent of the ridiculous and arbitrary deadline set to get us into the war in Iraq, preventing weapons inspectors from completing their job, the Bush administration’s new ridiculous and arbitrary deadline set for the completion of Iraq’s constitution has resulted in another half-assed and dreadful decision.

U.S. diplomats have conceded ground to Islamists on the role of religion in Iraq, negotiators said on Saturday as they raced to meet a 48-hour deadline to draft a constitution under intense U.S. pressure.

U.S. diplomats, who have insisted the constitution must enshrine ideals of equal rights and democracy, declined comment.

[…]

"We understand the Americans have sided with the Shi'ites," [a secular Kurdish politician] said. "It's shocking. It doesn't fit American values. They have spent so much blood and money here, only to back the creation of an Islamist state ... I can't believe that's what the Americans really want or what the American people want."

Great fucking job. Turn the most secular Arab state in existence into an Islamic state. Fabulous. Exactly what do Bush-worshipping American evangelicals have to say about this, considering there’s a not insignificant Christian population in Iraq, who will now be compelled to live under Islamic law? And what does the W is for Women crowd have to say about this, considering that Iraqi women will now be subjected to Shariah, which would take replace the rights that women had under Saddam to marry and divorce who they wanted with a statute that would prevent women of any age to marry without their families’ permission? This is madness. In one fell swoop, they have turned back literally decades of women’s rights in Iraq.

When all other rationales for this war were proved devoid of substance, the Right yammered about a humanitarian intervention—and so did the hawkish Left. The last time I checked, women were humans, too, and they ought not to be left with less freedom than they had before we got there.

The Heretik has a round-up of women bloggers who wrote on this potentiality when it was first floated in an article in the NY Times.