Lurking behind a lot of the problems in Iraq is one fundamental disagreement Americans have with many Iraqis: The importance of religious freedom.

And there is one fundamental difficulty behind many of the difficult circumstances America must face in the powder-keg environment of a recently invaded Islamic country: Our goals often seem contradictory. We are trying to restore freedom while simultaneously keeping aggressive extremist elements in Iraq at bay.

But as Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., pointed out in his Jan. 16 letter to the Bush administration, American attempts to bring freedom to Iraq will mean nothing unless all Iraqis are allowed the freedom to worship as they wish.

It will be a battle every bit as difficult as the military ones.

As the U.S. State Department pointed out in its recent report on religious freedom, Muslim countries such as Iraq are often the least likely to recognize others’ rights to worship.

After criticizing the policies of places such as China, North Korea and Cuba, Zenit news service notes, the U.S. State Department put in a separate category those countries where governments are hostile to religious groups seen as a threat to “security.” Four of these were:

Iran. The report notes that members of the country's religious minorities — Bahais, Jews, Christians, Sunni and Sufi Muslims — suffer degrees of officially sanctioned discrimination, including intimidation, harassment and imprisonment. Followers of the Bahai faith, derided as a kind of “wayward Islamic sect,” suffer the most.

Pakistan. The report accuses the government of failing to protect the rights of religious minorities. Discriminatory laws reigned at the national level. And authorities “failed to intervene in cases of societal violence directed at minority religious groups,” particularly Shiites.

Saudi Arabia. “The government continued to enforce a strictly conservative version of Sunni Islam and suppress the public practice of other interpretations of Islam and non-Muslim religions,” the U.S. report says. Non-Muslim worshippers faced the threat of “arrest, imprisonment, lashing, deportation and sometimes physical abuse for engaging in religious activity that attracted official attention.”

Sudan. The report says the Khartoum government continued its policy of Islamization, “relegating non-Muslims to de facto second-class citizenship.” Non-Muslim religious groups have difficulty obtaining registration. Authorities refuse to permit the construction of any churches in the Khartoum area or in the district capitals. And the assets of various Catholic relief projects were confiscated when the projects closed temporarily or moved locations.

Islamic leaders have been important allies of the Holy See in the past on human-rights issues such as abortion. But it remains true that the understanding of religious freedom that has developed in the West, particularly in the Catholic Church, has no counterpart as prominent in modern strains of Islam.

In Afghanistan, religious freedom was left out of the new constitution. We can't let that happen in Iraq. If our attempt to bring democracy to the Middle East is to be acceptable, we will have to confront the religious-freedom question squarely from the beginning.

An interim constitution for Iraq is to be completed by Feb. 28. As Santorum said in his letter, that constitution has to get the basics right. Freedom of thought, conscience and religion are essentials, not nice extras. These fundamental principals are the legacy America has given to the world, a legacy the United Nations codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In 2001, Pope John Paul II praised the United States for preserving religious freedom. “[I]t is significant that the promotion of religious freedom continues to be an important goal of American policy in the international community,” he said. “I want to express the appreciation of the whole Catholic Church for America's commitment in this regard.”

Will he be able to say the same after we leave Afghanistan and Iraq?