American Will Advise Iraqis on Writing New Constitution

WASHINGTON, May 7— As the news of Iraq's new constitutional adviser trickled out, some specialists in Islamic studies were scratching their heads. E-mail queries bounced back and forth. Who is Noah Feldman? Had anyone heard of him?

Legal experts were also somewhat taken aback. Professor Feldman is widely considered a promising constitutional law scholar, but by no means an established one.
On its face, it is surprising that the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance set up for Iraq would put a 32-year-old assistant law professor in the critical role of advising the Iraqis in writing their Constitution.
For one, Professor Feldman is finishing up his second year of teaching — at New York University Law School, where he is immensely popular with the students. His politics seem somewhat liberal in an administration known to vet scientists to sit on advisory committees.

But as people blink and begin to focus their eyes, a consensus is emerging that liberal or conservative, fresh-faced or gray-haired, Professor Feldman was the obvious choice.
"A lot of appointments to very sensitive jobs leave you amused or intrigued or indifferent," said Akbar Ahmed, a leading Islamic scholar from American University in Washington. "But here we had, for once, the right man for the job."

Some contend that the United States' effort to build a democracy in Iraq is overwhelming, if not na?ve. But those who know of Professor Feldman's background say he may be able to build a bridge between American notions of democracy and Islamic traditions. After all, how many American constitutional law scholars have a Ph.D. in Islamic studies and can speak and read Arabic fluently? "He's got substance in both an Islamic background and in practical constitutionalism," said David H. Souter, the Supreme Court justice for whom Professor Feldman was a law clerk.

Until recently, the intersection of democracy, Islam and American foreign policy was more a theoretical exercise. But Professor Feldman's book, "After Jihad: America and The Struggle for Islamic Democracy," is one of the first efforts to bring the discussion about Islam and democracy to a popular audience.

Professor Feldman said in a recent interview that Islam, like democracy, was a versatile and mobile concept that had spread widely throughout the world. He drew a distinction between the term Islamist, a viewpoint that is often associated with extremism, and Islamic, the description of things rooted in the religion's sense of justice, hope and commitment.
"The Middle Ages are alive in the Middle East," he said. "But there are discontinuities and continuities."
The rise of Islamist parties is natural in the early stages of Middle Eastern democracies as religious factions have more of an organized base, he said. But over the long run, he said he could see a strong potential for a secular moderate position in the Middle East. He said the popularity of Al Jazeera, the Arab news network, demonstrated an appetite for institutions that respect religion but do not see it as the answer to society's problems.
Fundamentally, said Larry Kramer, an assistant dean at the New York University law school, constitutional law is the examination of how a society constrains itself.

Professor Feldman has a folder full of visions of that constraint, having printed five proposed constitutions from the Web, including one by Munther al-Fadhal, a former exile who has been selected as senior adviser to the Iraqi Justice Ministry, and one by Kurdish leaders.

The drafts are similar in that they would provide basic rights and equality for women. But they differ in how they see the role of a central government and of religion.
The adviser's role, Professor Feldman said, is to provide examples of what other governments have done, and to explain what has or has not worked, so the Iraqi constitutional commission members can make their choices. "You're an option provider," he said. "The critical decisions are made by the people."
Professor Feldman grew up in Boston an Orthodox Jew. As a child, he learned Hebrew and Aramaic to read the ancient and medieval religious texts taught at the Maimonides School, a private Jewish school in Brookline, Mass. With those languages under his belt, he started Arabic at age 15 in summer school.

His interest in Islamic issues predates his interest in law. Richard Primus, a college friend who is now a law professor at University of Michigan, recalls one of their study sessions. While reading aloud the landmark Marbury v. Madison decision in 1803, which established the Supreme Court as the arbiter of the constitutionality of legislation, Professor Feldman noticed similar philosophical questions that he had encountered in ancient Islamic texts.
"From the very beginning of studying American law, he was always thinking about comparing it with Middle Eastern legal text," Mr. Primus said.

Professor Feldman graduated at the top of his class at Harvard, where he received a degree in Near Eastern studies. A Rhodes scholar at Oxford, he earned a doctorate in Islamic thought. He attended Yale Law School, where he helped Prof. Owen Fiss advise Eritrea about its constitution. Before he became Justice Souter's clerk, he was a law clerk for Harry Edwards on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
But when he entered the legal job market, law school deans saw Professor Feldman's doctorate as having mostly niche appeal, perhaps offering a "boutique Islamic law course for the 10 students who would have been interested in doing it," Professor Kramer said.

Professor Feldman started work on Aug. 29, 2001. "Two weeks later, this useless Ph.D. becomes incredibly valuable," Professor Kramer said. Professor Feldman's cellphone now rings with calls from the Middle East and questions from assorted government deputy and assistant under secretaries.

At a 200th anniversary celebration of Marbury v. Madison, Justice Souter stood in for Professor Feldman to deliver a paper. As he started, the justice noted that Professor Feldman had once portrayed Justice Souter in a parody as the world's greatest mountaineer, yachtsman and marathon runner, but that he was utterly unpersuasive.
Now it was Justice Souter's turn to portray his former clerk. "In this case, I'm sure I'm not going to come across very convincingly as a brilliant young scholar," Justice Souter said. "But I am one up on him because I can prove to you by reading his paper that he is."

Note: Articles listed under "Middle East studies in the News" provide information on current developments concerning Middle East studies on North American campuses. These reports do not necessarily reflect the views of Campus Watch and do not necessarily correspond to Campus Watch's critique.

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American Will Advise Iraqis on Writing New Constitution

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