For the Shi’ite majority and its senior religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Sistani, the January elections played out against the background of a longing for justice that has deep spiritual and historical sources as well as more recent sociopolitical roots.
About the Author
Ahmed H. al-Rahim has taught Arabic and Islamic studies at Harvard University. In 2003, he served in Iraq as an advisor on political Islam in the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.
Iraq today is more of a democracy than most people think, but still less of a democracy than it could be. While its future is uncertain, one thing is not:…
The global democratic decline of the last two decades is rarely discussed in the same breath with the 2003 decision by the United States and Britain to invade Iraq. But…
If Iraq is successfully to democratize and an inclusive democratic culture is to emerge, the Iraqi state must be reconstituted as a federal and strongly liberal system and thoroughly demilitarized.
