Read more from Kim Lawton's interview about religion and postwar Iraq with Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House and a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom:

I'm concerned that there has been a very suppressed Shiite majority [in Iraq]. Many of them have fled to Iran over the years and have been influenced by Iranian politics, where there is a religious totalitarian regime in place, and they have come back to Iraq and brought these political ambitions with them. And they are starting to fill a political vacuum after the fall of Saddam Hussein and his regime.

This is a version of Islam that is extreme. Its all-encompassing moral code is imposed politically, governmentally, and there is no space for religious freedom. For the Muslims, this means no space for dissent or [for] reformers to speak out. Those people are punished, often severely; in Iran we see them beheaded and killed for speaking out in dissent, and it's very worrisome in Iraq now. In fact, there have been a lot of threats [in Iraq]; there's been a lot of intimidation to impose a very strict Islamic conformity, and this is fundamentally a question of religious freedom.

The Shiite leaders are feeling their way. They have the numbers, and they are the only organized group in Iraq because Saddam Hussein would not allow any civic society to flourish outside of his own regime. Therefore, the Shiite community is the most organized and assertive at this point. They are imposing an Islamization on women, on Christian minorities, on other religious minorities, and on other Muslims. For example, women who go out in public now are being pelted with vegetables or being harassed in other ways in order to force them to wear Islamic dress, to wear the veil in public. This is happening against Christian women, against secular Muslims, and others. There have been reports of buses in Baghdad and Basra following municipal routes with Arabic signs saying "Muslims only." There have been occasions where Islamic clergy have grabbed power in schools, have thrown out principals and taken over forcibly, or else the United States administration has actually installed them in schools and hospitals. Liquor stores have been shut because these clergy do not approve of drinking alcohol. Some movie owners are living in fear of their lives because these clerics don't approve of foreign-made movies. Women are not covered up; their legs may show -- that's considered pornographic. A man and woman may appear together on a screen -- that's considered in violation of the laws of Islam, according to their interpretation of Islam.

Buildings that were formerly occupied by the Baathist regime are being taken over on an ad hoc basis and are being turned into Shiite mosques or centers, and from there, they are using those as a base to intimidate the neighborhood, to bring control in the neighborhoods. Loudspeakers in mosques are being used to broadcast the Islamic message and the Qur'an all day long. This is a way of filling the vacuum; this is an intimidating presence to remind people that they are there, and they are in control. More explicitly, the U.S. reconstruction team at times has turned over neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, even towns to the Shiite clergy to rule, to run. Assertive clergy are taking over certain segments of the government and the population.

I think that the U.S. is basically uncomfortable with dealing with [religious issues in Iraq]. They have shied away from asserting that there will be religious freedom. They talk about a free Iraq, a liberated Iraq; certainly President Bush has stated his vision, but the policy on the ground has been reticent. They have not wanted to take on this task of saying to the Shiite leadership, "We want you to be free, but not to the point where it imposes on others' freedom." You have to remember, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is the fundamental document setting forth this issue of religious freedom on a worldwide basis, talks about freedom as an individual right -- not just a right of communities or governments, but a right of the individual, and that right includes the right to dissent, the right to change your belief. It doesn't just mean the right of Muslims to convert to Christianity -- that's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm talking about the right of Muslims to dissent on an individual basis from prevailing orthodoxy and live and be respected.

Of course, we are also concerned about the rights of Christian minorities, and this is a cradle of Christianity in Iraq, a very ancient apostolic community, and these people are very frightened. They wonder what kind of tolerance will be afforded to them, whether they will be able to live out their lives. Already a number have been killed.

Christian women are being forced to dress like Islamic women. It's a form of sharia law, Islamic law, that's being imposed on a de facto basis. Even more worrisome are Islamic courts that are being set up to settle disputes. These have been set up on an ad hoc basis, but with the acquiescence of the U.S. military, who's in charge. The U.S. military at times has acted relieved that someone at least is there imposing order. It's a very dangerous trend, and if it continues we will see, ironically, a shifting of Iran-style theocracy into Iraq just at a time when Iran itself seems to be on the verge of liberalization.

I don't think anyone in the U.S. government is prepared [to deal with religious issues in Iraq]. Certainly, a lot of people have learned a lot more about Islam and its extremist manifestations since 9/11. But I don't think the United States is comfortable dealing with religion. It hasn't been something that they've had to sort out in the past in a direct way, and there's been a tendency to shy away from religious issues and religious disputes and interfaith disputes because of this notion, this principle of the wall of separation between church and state in the United States. But in a situation where freedoms and democracy [are] going to be ultimately undermined by a religious establishment that imposes its ways and its orders, irrespective of a constitution, irrespective of elected officials who are not themselves accountable to the voters, who are enforcing it through vigilante groups [and] moral police.

These Islamic extremists are [not] going to be accountable to the voters. [They are] not enforcing constitutional rights [but] violating them and enforcing their own orders, which are not democratically pronounced in any sort of constitutional way, [but] through vigilantes or violent volunteers, if you will, who go around enforcing the head scarf or other decrees, whatever they may be, whether it's bans on alcohol or commingling of the genders. That will affect freedom of expression, freedom of association, due process rights, all of these.

A panoply of human rights are ultimately going to be affected. This is going to become a central issue in the political future of Iraq: whether it is to be a free and liberal nation, as President Bush has promised, or whether it's going to slip into a very totalitarian religious regime. The U.S. government is going to have to confront this issue. It is reluctant to do so, but it's going to have to take a stand on whether there will be individual rights to religious freedom or not.

In Afghanistan, this issue has not been directly addressed by the U.S. government. The chief justice of the supreme court, Shinwari (who is being paid for by the United States taxpayers, by the way -- his salary), is imposing a hard-line Islamic law. He has already decreed bans against foreign cinema, female vocalists on the radio, that kind of thing, sort of what I call Taliban Lite regime; they are imposing blasphemy charges against journalists who dare to criticize the government. And blasphemy, of course, in this Islamic jurisprudence is a capital offense.

We're reconstructing a political system that is rife with human rights abuses on every level. We're going to have to really come to terms with this issue of religious freedom. It's really at the core of all of this, because if there is no religious freedom for Muslims, they are going to be accused of blasphemy again, again and again. We see this in Saudi Arabia, we see it in Iran -- current cases in both of those places, and we're seeing it now surface in Afghanistan.

We're seeing a theological iron curtain descend on these places. This is a system that does not sit well in a pluralistic world. They do not tolerate pluralism. They want not only an all-Muslim state or territory, but a Muslim territory of their particular interpretation. Islam is not monolithic. There are many, many different interpretations. There are a variety of schools. But fundamentally, this particular regime has a very hard line, and they do not tolerate other interpretations.

In Iraq, the United States now has direct control. We, at a minimum, must not be empowering these clergy to take over police stations. In the paper the other day there was a story about a woman who was not admitted to a police station in Iraq now because she did not have Islamic dress on. This is just unacceptable. The United States, in handing over courts and schools to these hard-line Shiite clerics -- this is unacceptable. We have to have religious freedom; we have to find the Islamic humanists among them, work with them or moderates -- whatever you want to call them. We have to identify those Shiites and Islamic leaders who do embrace individual freedoms and human rights, and they are out there, and we have to be straightforward in insisting on religious freedom for everyone, including Muslims, in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's going to be a little more difficult in Afghanistan because we are not directly ruling like we are in Iraq, but nonetheless I think we can, at a minimum, insist that it be enshrined in their new constitution. We're underwriting that process of drafting the constitution. It will be adopted in Afghanistan in October. We have to make sure that it's in there.