A New Iraq

Essay by marinedawn February 2005

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Now that the regime of Saddam Hussein has passed into history, the most pertinent question is what kind of authority will emerge in its place. To go even further would be not only to ask what kind of authority but to include what type of relationship between the state and the individual that it would have. Coming into the twenty-first century with no democratic history and little familiarity with constitutional freedoms will make this transition a difficult one for the Iraqi people. In order to establish a fertile democratic nation and a just free-market economy, the transcendent dignity of the Iraqi citizens must be kept in consideration.

According the Church, there is an awareness of the sublime dignity of the human person, who stands above all things and whose rights and duties are universal and inviolable. Every human being was created in God's image, possessing within the capability of choosing freely and responding to and becoming good.

Any human society, if it is to be well ordered and productive, must lay down as a foundation this principle: Every human being is a person, that is, his nature is endowed with intelligence and free will. The function of law then, according the Church, is to permit a citizen to make choices that will maximize his or her potential in relation to the common good. The law must make sure that his or her ability to relate with family and an economic, social, political, and culturally diverse society is not restrained. This it what leads the Church to form its views on how the state and citizen should relate.

The Church believes the responsibility of a strong relationship between the state and its citizens lies on two main pillars: the rights of the citizens and the efficiency of the economic system. "Individual...