Kanan Makiya, a professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies and Near Eastern and Judaic Studies has been granted a leave of absence to work on a committee formed to create a new constitution for post-war Iraq. Iraq's U.S.-appointed governing council has created this 25-member committee which will create a method in which the drafters of the new constitution will be chosen. An article from the Washington Post dubbed Makiya as the committee's "most prominent member."

A former Iraqi dissident, Makiya, who has advised the U.S. government on Iraq in the past, can name as colleagues such prominent figures as the current President Bush and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. He has written bestselling and award-winning books and documentaries, including "Republic of Fear" and "Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising and the Arab World;" he was also a convener of the Human Rights Committee of the Iraqi National Congress and has recently written a blueprint for post-war Iraqi democracy.

Most recently, Makiya was part of the "Future of Iraq Project," which is under the auspices of the U.S. State Department. The Project is meant to deal with all aspects of post-war reconstruction in Iraq. Additionally, during his time in Iraq, he will be working on the Iraq Memory Foundation, extending the work that he has done with the Iraqi secret police archives to build a museum memorializing and exposing the horrors of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Until relatively recently, Makiya had reason to fear for his safety. Unable to return to Iraq due to his exile, he wrote publications in New York, Boston and London. Most of his books were written under the pseudonym Samir al Khalil because dissidents were dealt harsh punishments under Hussein's regime. Accordingly, as he stated in an interview in the Boston Globe, "I wrote that book (Republic of Fear) in total secrecy, hiding my own name originally. Nobody would talk about anything and so nearly everything came through people's writings or official documents."

Makiya was a supporter of the war and of U.S. intervention in Iraq. As noted in a New York Times Magazine article, Makiya told President Bush that he believed that Iraqis would welcome invading U.S. troops with "sweets and flowers." In a Boston Globe article, he suggested even that an American military presence might be necessary to help protect Iraq from outside invasion after it had been demilitarized.

In column published in the New York Times, however, Makiya wrote, "That (in 1991) was a pivotal moment because the United States shrank from supporting an opposition that would have brought about deep structural change in Iraq, a change that would have included the Kurds and the Shiites in a pro-Western, non-nationalist, federally structured regime. Instead, America held back in favor of what it thought to be much safer, an officer-led coup that would replace one set of Baath Party leaders with another. But that judgment proved to be wrong."

Although Makiya said he believes that Western powers have done "terrible things" in the Middle East, he holds to the idea that "Arabs need to take responsibility for current policy problems."

"Whereas in the rest of the Arab world, the United States is criticized for even thinking of getting involved in Arab affairs; in the Iraqi mind, the problem is that they are not getting involved, and that they leave Saddam in power," he wrote.

At American Enterprise Institute's "The Day After: Planning for a Post-Saddam Iraq" conference, Makiya presented a paper entitled "A Model for Post-Saddam Iraq." It is a blueprint for creating democracy in Iraq, including what Makiya considers four major points: federalism, ethnicity and statehood, religion and statehood and de-militarization.

Makiya makes the assertion that federalism is necessary for a democratic Iraq. "No future state in Iraq can be democratic if it is not at the same time federal in structure," he said. Furthermore, Makiya said that federalism requires a "devolution of power away from the center, Baghdad, towards the provinces."

Makiya writes that in order to assure equal rights and citizenship to all of its citizens, Iraq, in a political sense, cannot be recognized as an Arab entity. Many ethnic groups live within Iraq, although Arabs make up the majority of the population. In order to assure equal citizenship, according to Makiya, Iraq must be divided along territorial lines, not ethnic ones, a "novel idea for the region."

"Iraqis deserve to live in an Iraq in which a Kurd or a Chalean, or an Assyrian or a Turkoman, may they be male and female, can in principle be elected to the highest offices of the land," Makiya writes. "That means a non-Arab Iraq."

Makiya says he recognizesthat Iraqis may choose to utilize religious law as state law and religious leaders as political leaders. "To guard against the recurrence of (religious) abuse," he writes, "Iraqis need to invent a concept of statehood that will give all religions in the country the opportunity to flourish once again."

Makiya also writes of a set of questions that, ideally, Iraqis would answer. Their answers would determine whether or not they desired a separation of church and state.

Makiya writes also that decreasing the size and power of the Iraqi army is crucial to improving the lives of its citizens. "Abolish conscription and reorganize the army into a professional, small and purely defensive force which will never be used for internal repression. Set an absolute upper limit on expenditure on this new force equal to two percent of Iraqi national income," he writes

Makiya writes that he looks forward to a day when Iraq can become "as great a force for democracy and economic reconstruction in the Arab and Muslim world as it has been a force for autocracy and destruction."

Makiya was unavailable for comment at printing.