Michael recently pointed out how the Iraqi working class are going to get cut out of the forthcoming deal over Iraq's oil, while rich Iraqi and American corporations benefit.
This is, of course, not a surprise. Iraq's women were cut out of a vast number of rights way back in 2003, and it appears to me, for the foreseeable future as well, because under the "realistic" method of reconstruction — which I call the build-on-the-fly method — it was better for the US to concede women's rights for the sake of "stability." As such, the US consented to a horrible version of the Shariah to be placed as part of Iraqi law, making one question our commitment to "freedom."
Here is an Iraqi feminist explaining how the new constitution turned women into second class citizens in a Shariah system.
YANAR MOHAMMED: It has made it very clear under the first chapter of the main principles that the Sharia will be the main source, actually, the exact word is the base source of legislation, and any article that contradicts with Islamic Sharia cannot be passed under this constitution. So, we are speaking here about a whole family law that will be based on Sharia, in the time that our previous family law was more progressive. It had a big number of amendments to it. It was one of the best in the Middle East, and it gave women some kind of independence, while under this new family law that will be totally based on Islamic Sharia, women's rights in marriage, in divorce, in custody and even in access to work and education will be in the hands of the males. In other words, we are not allowed to independence. We are not allowed to decisions in our lives, and we not speaking here about only appearances of wearing veil or not veil, but we are speaking about women having choices in their lives. We have lost those, and it is by constitution now. There is no other way to it, because no article that contradicts with Islamic Sharia will be allowed in the family law, and there isn't much elaboration about following the international conventions of ending the discrimination against women to prioritize them over religion. It says very clearly the priority is that the laws will not contradict with Islamic Sharia. So, there you go, all of the women are second-rate citizens in Iraq. There's another point, Amy.
Of course, X years from now, after we've left, and after there is a modicum of peace in Iraq, when all these Shariah laws are imposed on women, people like me and those bleeding heart liberals at amnesty will bitch and moan about "America's fault" when pro-stoning legislation is being debated in Iraq, and then we'll get called anti-American. Meanwhile, a whole cottage industry of right-wing pundits will be talking about Islam's inherent patriarchy and American absolution will be had by everyone but those who are being victimized.
In the comments of an earlier post we discussed how something went amiss from 1935 to today which led to the empowerement of illiberal Muslims all across the world. I suggested that our foreign policy had something to do with that. Now that I have shown you exactly how it is happening even today, do you believe?