This is not good at all:
Partly in response to the disorder in Baghdad since Saddam Hussein’s government collapsed April 9, partly in response to a vision of a more religious Muslim society, the Shiite clergy — perhaps the best-organized force in the unsettled capital besides the U.S. occupation — have moved deftly to create de facto institutions of justice, ruling on cases from divorce to property disputes. At the same time, they have begun enforcing their version of Islamic law, warning shops not to sell alcoholic beverages and theaters not to show risque movies.
A senior U.S. official here acknowledged concern about the clergy’s influence in handing down justice. But U.S. occupation officials, struggling to restore basic civil institutions, said a new legal code to replace law decreed under Hussein would likely wait until a temporary Iraqi authority is put into place.
Time is not on our side, and the Opinion Journal weighs in on an aggressive mideast policy.