IRAQ: Hummam Hammoudi says he did not want to supervise the drafting of the Iraqi constitution. The task was thrust upon him by fellow Shia Muslim members of parliament, after he forged the "169" list that swept last January's elections, writes Lara Marlowe in Baghdad
"Because I wear a turban, I knew the westerners would say Iraq was becoming an Islamic republic," Dr Hammoudi said in an interview in his office behind acres of sand bags, cement barriers and barbed wire in the US-controlled "Green Zone".
The West would never accept that a man like him, dressed in clerical garb, would become the president of Iraq, he says. Then he relents slightly: "Perhaps. After the Americans leave." Dr Hammoudi uses his academic title - he holds doctorates in psychology and theology from the universities of Qom and Najaf. But he is also a hojatolislam, a high-ranking Shia cleric.
Yesterday, Dr Hammoudi glowed with the triumph of having overseen the last-minute deal that secured a measure of Sunni Muslim acceptance of the constitution. By bringing the Sunni Islamic Party on board, Dr Hammoudi increased the already strong likelihood that the document would be ratified in a nationwide referendum tomorrow. The results will be announced by the electoral commission about five days later.
The US had nothing to do with his nomination, Dr Hammoudi insists. Yet he has far more time for the present US ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-born Shia, than he did for the erstwhile US pro-consul, Paul Bremer. "Khalilzad is closer to the Iraqi community. He is eastern. When he speaks, he begins: 'In the name of God the Merciful . . .' He doesn't act like a diplomat; he acts like a politician. He doesn't impose himself on Iraqis; he acts as if he were one of us."
Dr Hammoudi's nomination as chairman of the Constitutional Committee was "a matter of mathematics", he says. "The committee was to reflect the composition of the National Assembly, which has 50 per cent Shia, 27 per cent Kurds, 14 per cent other (Turkmen, Christians, etc) and 3 per cent Sunni. The committee was a parliament in miniature." The Sunnis were under-represented because they had boycotted the January poll, so the US nominated extra Sunni members to the committee.
"We are trying to convince them that the political game is the only way to end occupation," Dr Hammoudi says.
"Najaf and Kerbala are liberated from US occupation. They are under Iraqi control now. If we didn't have terrorism, we could have liberated the entire country by now."
Dr Hammoudi rejects allegations that the constitution sets women's rights back, because of the priority given to Islamic law. "We did a questionnaire. A lot of women wanted Islamic law rather than civil law, which is in any case derived from Islamic law," he says.
With the Shia comprising at least 60 per cent of Iraq's population, they will always have the final say on major issues - precisely what worries other ethnic and religious groups. The concept of minority rights has not taken root here. Does democracy mean that the Shia will always decide for everyone, I ask Dr Hammoudi. "Unless you have another definition of democracy," he replies. "When there is a vote, the power goes to the winner. We Shia do not want to rule over other Iraqis. That's why we support federalism."
The leaders of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), to which Dr Hammoudi belongs, were exiled in Iran during Saddam Hussein's 30-year dictatorship. But he says formerly exiled Iraqi politicians were inspired by federalism in the US and Germany when they drafted the constitution.
Residents of southern Iraq joke about the strong Iranian influence there, calling their provinces "jnoub-istan" ("south-istan").
SCIRI wants the nine southern provinces to form a region that would enjoy self-rule in all but foreign and defence policy, like Kurdistan. This is the future battle between Shia and Sunni, which will be fought out in the new assembly elected in December, assuming the constitution passes.
Why such a big chunk of Iraq - half of the country's 18 provinces - for the Shia region?
"We feared that a small region of the three southernmost provinces would be subject to external influence from either their Arab or Iranian neighbours," Dr Hammoudi says, somewhat mischievously.
The other reason for a Shia "super-region," Dr Hammoudi continues, is that the three southernmost provinces alone "would be as [ oil] rich as Kuwait and the contrast would be too stark with the others. It is better to average the wealth out."
On the question of oil revenue, the father of the Iraqi constitution seems to contradict himself. He rejects the idea that the constitution, which invests huge powers in the regions, marks the partition of Iraq. "If we intended to partition the country, we wouldn't have written in article 108 that 'oil and gas is the wealth of the whole Iraqi nation and all the regions'."
Yet with Sunnis and Shia accusing each other of mass kidnapping, assassination and suicide-bombing, Dr Hammoudi agrees that partition already exists in the minds of many Iraqis. Ever an optimist, he hopes the next national assembly will include parties that cross sectarian lines. The Sunni Islamic Party, he says, has asked to join the Shia "169" list that won January's election. "We will discuss that after the referendum."
"The Islamic Party adopted a clever position yesterday," Dr Hammoudi continues, "because they were convinced the constitution was going to pass anyway. But they needed something to save face, which was the article about the next assembly making amendments."
Dr Hammoudi claims the Islamic Party, the Waqf (the Sunni establishment that administers mosques) and the former interim president, Ghazi Yawar, all of whom support the constitution, are truly representative of the Sunni population. "The position taken by the Islamic Party turned the constitution into an Iraqi document," he says. "People said it was Shia and Kurdish . . . Now the Sunnis are being won over. The lung through which the insurgents breathe - the Saddamists and the terrorists - will weaken."
Wishful thinking? Similar predictions were made at the time of the January election, yet violence has only worsened.