August 28, 2005—So now that Iraq's constitution will abolish the Personal Status Law that gave Iraqi women some self-determination, how are the apologists for "liberating" Iraq spinning it? President Bush says that he asked "Condi"—ain't she a woman?—and she says it'll be okay. He was eager to get on his $3,000 bike in Idaho, so he didn't have time to express himself with his customary clarity.

Former C.I.A. Middle East specialist, Reuel Marc Gerecht, said on "Meet the Press," that U.S. democracy in 1900 didn't let women vote. If Iraqi democracy resembled that "we'd all be thrilled," he said. "I mean, women's social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy."

So why the hell did we go into Afghanistan? We didn't get bin Laden, and the burqa is still the fashion item de rigueur for Afghan women, unless they want to be raped on the spot. What was Laura Bush so excited about, when her husband told her we would be building democracy in Afghanistan by liberating women if it turns out it's not a requirement? It's all too confusing.

But I'm a woman, and I digress.

Yep. The guy really said that. Not critical to the evolution of democracy. Right, because, after all, contrary to what feminists claim, women are not human beings. They haven't got a mind, so society would be better off if they didn't have the "social right" to read and write or speak in public. Societies without women's participation would be ever so much quieter. A president wouldn't have to run away from one vacation spot to another just because some latter-day Joan of Arc decides to liberate the country from an invasion of murderous lies. Little girls should be seen, not heard. Like in Saudi Arabia—another place where the lack of social rights for women is not hindering the evolution of democracy! There, the invisibility of women in the public sphere is probably called "intelligent design." We don't choose our allies at random, after all.

But why stop at women? African Americans are not crucial to the evolution of democracy either. In 1860, there was slavery in the US but we had a "democracy"—though the slaves weren't thrilled. Why not

make the Sunnis the slave class? Then, Iraq can have a civil war just like we did!

We don't want to spare the growing pains of democracy to anyone. We want everyone to come a long way, baby—possibly through pain, humiliation, struggle, and imprisonment. What's a democracy if it doesn't leave casualties behind! I mean, how is one to congratulate oneself on being the best country in the world if one cannot point to the people's blood, sweat, and tears it took to get it.

No, women's social rights may not be crucial to the development of fatuous abstractions of democracy, but their absence is sure instrumental in ramming through this bogus constitution, scoring a quick publicity point for Bush, in a deal with the mullahs and other patriarchs. Regression is a good trade-off, especially if the brunt of it is absorbed by the suffering if irrelevant bodies of women—and foreign ones at that!

Now, I think this democracy thing can be taken a step further. I think that (no doubt, white) men in the CIA, who sit around deciding what kind of democracy foreign folks should be thankful for getting from the not-so-hidden hands of their occupiers, should have their social rights revoked here at home for living inside a paper bag full of their breath's hot and sexist air. After all, they contribute nothing to the evolution of democracy!

Luciana Bohne teaches film and literature at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. She can be reached at lbohne@edinboro.edu .