Remember all the new women's rights in Iraq? Yeah, not so much.

One of the ways war supporters used guilt to manipulate people into wrong-headed views about the invasion of Iraq was to exploit empathy for oppressed minorities in the nation. There are countless nations in the world that would engender the condemnation of Americans if people knew the details of their respective civil structures, and Iraq was near the top of the despicable list. In particular, Saddam's government treated women poorly (if better, one should note, than several other Arab nations), and there was much discussion -- from Laura Bush especially -- about the importance of freeing women through the war.

It won't surprise anyone, of course, to hear that women in today's Iraq are overwhelmingly worse off than before. As the conservative Shia majority gains control of the nation, rights are slipping away, and women are vulnerable to a host of problems and challenges due to the continuing conflict.

In particular, as Salon's Broadsheet notes, it's harder for women to leave the country due to a terrible law preventing women from getting passports without permission from a husband, father, brother, or uncle:

For years local authorities had let enforcement of this rule slide. But now that Iraqi authorities are trying to crack down on forged passports, all passports have to be issued through a central agency in Baghdad -- and that central authority takes the permission requirement seriously. So now women like Rezan Muhammad Ali, who was interviewed by the [Hartford] Courant, are being told that they can't get passports without a male relative's consent.

As you might imagine, this has a hugely pernicious effect upon women living without male relatives. Hmmmm . . . what might cause a woman to lack male relatives . . . oh wait, I know -- all her relatives being killed! Like, say, in a war. Or if her male relatives are off fighting in that war. Or in hiding because of the war.

An idiotic law, an awful result, and yet another consequence of a horrific conflict that should have been avoided in the first place and certainly should be ended now.