A sinecure, according to our Webster’s Second, is “any office or position of value which requires or involves little or no responsibility, labor, or active service.” So maybe the government positions that America is recommending be reserved for Sunni Muslim politicians in the new Iraq should be called Sunnicures. After all, the jobs wouldn’t actually require the politicians to labor for enough votes to win seats in Iraq’s parliamentary elections next month.

The American plan surfaced Sunday in the New York Times. It reported that one possibility under consideration was “of adding some of the top vote-getters among the Sunni candidates to the 275-member legislature, even if they lose to non-Sunni candidates.” Just how bad of an idea this is was indicated by the news yesterday, reported by Reuters, that Iraq’s top Sunni party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, announced that it was withdrawing from participation in the election, which is scheduled for January 30. If the Sunnis are going to get assembly seats even if they lose the election, why should they bother competing at all?

The irony was made clear when Senators Lugar and Levin were asked about it Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” As the senators earnestly pontificated about the importance of Sunni representation in the new Iraqi assembly, it was hard not to remember that the makeup of our own Senate itself does not neatly track America’s population of African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, or women. Mr. Levin, a Jew, manages ably to represent his predominantly Christian constituents, who include many women and African-Americans.

Iraq is not America. But to the degree that American diplomats are pressuring Iraqis for Sunni representation in the new government, they are spurning their own traditions, tested over the centuries. We speak of our own Constitution, the most emphatic sentence of which states, “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” No. Ever. Any.

Nor is it necessary to look only to the American experience with democracy. Europe, in contrast, has tried proportional representation to ensure that even losing parties gain seats in a legislature. But it has had mostly disastrous results over the centuries. American blood has been invested in the idea of democracy in Iraq, and it makes no sense for our own diplomats to be undercutting that investment by advancing plans for watering down democracy in favor of those factions who are unwilling or unable to win elections.