By ANTHONY SHADID
c.2010 New York Times News Service
BAGHDAD – Glumly, Qais Sharaa peered through his barbershop at the collage of posters in Firdos Square, where a statue of Saddam Hussein once presided and the vocabulary of democracy now prevails. Nationalists applauded unity and former insurgents swore their fight was behind them. One poster sported the unlikely portrait of an unveiled woman, in gold jewelry and lipstick, running as a candidate for the country’s most ardently religious party.
“It’s true we have freedom,” Sharaa said, “but what do we have beyond it?”
“Where’s the law, where’s the state, where’s the sense of citizenship?”