Noah Feldman: All Publications, Events and Press

The Totally Religious, Absolutely Democratic Constitution

Articles — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 00:00:00 -0500

A decade ago, almost everyone across the political spectrum--from neoconservatives to Islamic fundamentalists--agreed that democracy and Islam were inherently incompatible. This consensus followed from definitions: democracy means the rule of the people, whereas Islam teaches the sovereignty of God. In October, though, Iraqis went to the polls and ratified a Constitution that committed itself with equal strength to both democracy and Islam. The document announced that Iraq would be a democracy with equality for all and declared that no law could contradict the principles of democracy. At the same time, it declared Islam the basic source of law and the… more

War-Mood Metrics

Articles — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 00:00:00 -0500

A little less than a year ago, in the aftermath of the first Iraqi elections, the most irresponsible thing being said in Washington was that everything was going to be fine. Now, with the next set of elections scheduled for December 15, the new irresponsibility is the increasingly respectable assertion that the war has already been lost. Irrational optimism has been replaced by unjustified pessimism. This is not some triumph of experience over idealism. One a priori ideological standpoint is simply giving way to another.

The last, bloody year in Iraq has seen an uninterrupted stream of insurgent attacks on… more

God, Government and You;

Articles — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 00:00:00 -0400

Michael Newdow, a California atheist, has gained plenty of notoriety over the past few years. He got a case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court contending that children in general--his daughter in particular--must not recite the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance in school. Why not? Because he believes the words, which were added in 1954, violate the separation of church and state.

You may have thought Newdow had gone away. After all, the high court threw out the case because he doesn't have custody of his daughter. But he's back, making the challenge again on… more

The Meaning of No

Articles — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 00:00:00 -0400

Casting a yes vote in next Saturday's constitutional referendum in Iraq would be easy to understand. Although the proposed document is too decentralizing for some tastes and too Islamic for others, those who choose to ratify it are clearly embracing democratic politics instead of violence. But what would it mean to vote no, as hundreds of thousands of Iraqis seem poised to do?

If enough no votes are cast in the right places, they will sink the constitution. Should two-thirds of the voters in 3 separate provinces (out of 18 in Iraq) check the no box, Iraqis would be sent… more

Agreeing to Disagree in Iraq

Articles — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 00:00:00 -0400

The completion of Iraq's draft constitution, which will be submitted to the people for ratification in October, should have been an occasion for celebration. As most Americans are aware, it has not been. But while much of the criticism has focused on such areas as women's rights, federalism and the role of Islam, such concerns are largely misplaced. In fact, the text strives to balance democratic equality with the Islamic values that are popular with many Iraqi voters, and it sketches a workable if vague compromise on power-sharing between the center and the federal regions.

The major problem is… more

The Power of The Book;

Articles — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 00:00:00 -0400

Religion and politics used to be the two great taboos of polite conversation. Today politics is everywhere, right down to the Fox and CNN ubiquitous at the gym. But religion remains a special case. The mainstream news media--television in particular, which is where many Americans get the bulk of their information--treads lightly when it touches it at all, afraid of giving offense or oversimplifying and reaping the consequences. Talking heads pontificating about Islam as a source of terror is not a discussion of religion. Evangelicals almost never appear on mainstream TV, not even Fox. I can't think of the last… more

Foundering?

Articles — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 00:00:00 -0400

When a constitution succeeds, its framers come to be regarded as visionaries. They are seen in retrospect to have predicted future difficulties and dealt with them ingeniously, by building a machine that would run of itself. From the inside, though, constitution drafting is not so philosophical and frictionless; it does not take place under the aspect of the eternal. The immediate politics of the moment dominate, along with the lurking fear that if the constitution is not ratified, national collapse may follow.

In Baghdad today, as in Philadelphia in 1787, constitution writing means horse-trading, improvisation, dispute and deferral. As Iraq's… more

A Church-State Solution

Articles — Sun, 03 Jul 2005 03:00:00 -0400

I. THE EXPERIMENT

For roughly 1,400 years, from the time the Roman Empire became Christian to the American Revolution, the question of church and state in the West always began with a simple assumption: the official religion of the state was the religion of its ruler. Sometimes the king fought the church for control of religious institutions; other times, the church claimed power over the state by asserting religious authority over the sovereign himself. But the central idea, formally enshrined at Westphalia in 1648 by the treaty that ended the wars of religion in Europe, was that… more

Divided by God

adminn — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 03:00:00 -0400

Selected reviews of Divided by God are featured below:

Kirkus Reviews

Friday, July 15, 2005 "Can't we all—fundamentalist and atheist and nonideologist—just get along? It wouldn't seem so, writes NYU law professor Feldman (After Jihad), who argues that the ever-hotter war between the proponents of 'values evangelism' on one hand and 'legal secularism' on the other 'now threatens to destroy a common national vision.' That vision includes belief in the constitutional separation of church and state; and, as Feldman observes, the battle is not strictly about religious belief as such, but about how religious belief… more

Ugly Americans

Articles — Mon, 30 May 2005 00:00:00 -0400

A review of Karen J. Greenberg and Joshua L. Dratel's The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib and Mark Danner's Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror

The Canaanite king Adoni-bezek has just a single line of dialogue in the Bible, but it is one not easily forgotten. Defeated by the combined forces of the tribes of Judah and Simeon, he is subjected to the ordeal of having his index fingers and great toes cut off. Adoni-bezek's philosophical response is that in his day he himself lopped off the fingers and toes of seventy kings: "As… more

Global Warning

Articles — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 00:00:00 -0500

The globalization of Islam is nothing new. The Prophet Muhammad himself confronted Jews, Christians and pagans in his Arabian milieu -- and within a couple of generations, Islam, spread by conquest and conversion alike, came into fruitful contact with the legacies of Persian, Greek and Roman civilizations.

Nevertheless, since 9/11, the pace of the engagement between global Islam and other, mostly Western, forces and ideas has quickened, and the stakes have grown. The latest round of books on Islam and the West attempts to make sense of this most recent and intense episode of global interaction and conflict. Mostly,… more

Now for the Hard Part in Iraq

Articles — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 00:00:00 -0500

The Iraqis who braved violence to vote on Sunday in the country's first free election in 50 years were, like voters everywhere, expressing democratic belief in ownership over their political future. Many also believed, in accordance with the teaching of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the moderate Iraqi Shia leader, that voting was a religious obligation. If, as seems likely, the Shia parties associated with Mr Sistani have taken a substantial majority, elected officials who describe themselves as Islamic democrats will, for the first time, actually get the opportunity to govern after taking office.

In Iraq, the convergence of Islam and democratic… more

What We Owe Iraq

Communications — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 11:00:00 -0500

A New America Event
11/16/2004 - 12:00pm

In his just released book What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building, Noah Feldman presents a penetrating analysis of the present and future complexities involved in rebuilding Iraq. He fosters an urgent discussion on why America's ethical obligations to the Iraqi people should be at the forefront of the nation building process. Drawing on both historic and modern day examples, Feldman reveals why Iraq poses more ethical dilemmas than any prior nation undertaking. He offers a coherent case on how and why the U.S. should live up to its moral commitment to the Iraqi people in order to produce a democratic and free nation.

As Associate Professor of Law at New York University and author of the best-selling book After Jihad, Noah Feldman has seen the enormous challenges facing Iraq firsthand. He served as an advisor in 2003 to the Coalition authorities and, later to the Iraqi Governing Council charged with creating Iraq's interim constitution.

Please join us for a discussion focusing on the war and ethics of nation building including the need to balance America's self-interests with those of the Iraqi people.

The Sunni Angle

Articles — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 00:00:00 -0500

The U.S. military, with help from Kurdish-dominated Iraqi national guard units, has done its part in taking Fallujah. But the war against the insurgency will not be won by military means alone. The ultimate objective is political: drawing Iraq's Sunni Arabs into elections and the constitutional process that will follow. The only route to a peaceful Iraq runs through negotiations -- and those must include all the country's major groups, not only those who have already agreed to attempt federal democracy.

Basic order is the necessary prerequisite for both elections and a national debate about the shape of Iraq's future government.… more

What We Owe Iraq

adminn — Mon, 04 Oct 2004 00:00:00 -0400

Selected reviews of What We Owe Iraq are featured below:

The Washington Post

Sunday, November 21, 2004 Many Americans don't understand what they're currently up against. Al Qaeda has often been depicted as the superpower of terrorist and jihadist networks, commanding the allegiance of jihadist groups throughout the world and influencing global terrorist operations through a steady flow of money and recruits. In fact, al Qaeda has become a relatively small operational… more

Iraq Can Wait for Democracy

Articles — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 00:00:00 -0400

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Iraqi Shiite leader, is concerned that Shiites may not be adequately represented in a future government, fueling worries that the national election scheduled for January may not happen. And even if the election does proceed as planned, many Sunni clerics in the turbulent central region of the country are urging their followers to boycott it.

However, this situation may not be the hopeless muddle it appears. First, a close look at the messages from the Sistani camp reveals that his intervention seems less an attempt to derail the election than a calculated effort to improve… more

Democracy in the Islamic World

American Strategy — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 00:00:00 -0500

IN A REMARKABLE SPEECH at the National Endowment for Democracy in November 2003, President Bush acknowledged 60 years of American error and announced a policy of encouraging democracy, not dictatorship, in the Muslim world. Whether this long overdue message is followed by an actual policy change or simply results from the short-term need to explain the Iraq war in the absence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) remains to be seen. But in any event, Bush neglected to mention a crucial fact that looms over every discussion of democratization in the Muslim world: if freed to make their own… more

Islam and Democracy: The Great Experiment

Articles — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 00:00:00 -0500

A year ago, the prospects for democracy in the Muslim world depended solely on incremental developments in the politics of individual countries. Free elections in Turkey, for example, had brought to power an Islamic-oriented party which was, and still is, governing democratically with less military interference than many expected. Quasi-free elections in Morocco and Pakistan had shown that Islamic parties would win votes when autocratic rulers gave them a chance to take part. In Iran, meanwhile, it was becoming clear that President Mohammad Khatami lacked either the will or the capacity to stand up to the hardliners… more

Democracy, Closer Every Day

Articles — Wed, 24 Sep 2003 00:00:00 -0400

Many Americans, not to mention our European allies, may be shaking their heads over President Bush's defiant speech at the United Nations yesterday. With the coalition forces under daily attack and billions being spent to rebuild Iraq, shouldn't Mr. Bush have been more conciliatory in an effort to get other countries to send troops?

Actually, Mr. Bush was right to refuse a rushed transfer of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government as the price to pay for greater international participation in the postwar effort. The reconstruction of Iraq is a two-track process: one track for security, one for politics. The… more

Constitutional Democracy & Islam: A Blueprint

Communications — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 18:00:00 -0400

A New America Event
07/22/2003 - 12:07pm

Noah Feldman, Former Senior Advisor for Constitutional Law, Office of Reconstruction & Humanitarian Assistance in Iraq; Author, After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy; and Professor of Law, New York University