THE
ROVING EYE How to constitute a civil
war By Pepe Escobar
Iraqis desperately need security,
electricity, water, food rations, health care,
education, jobs. Instead they get a referendum on
a constitution few of Iraq's theoretical 15.7
million voters have debated and fewer still have
even seen. Why? Because the occupying power said
so. So forget about the real priorities needed to
make life liveable. No constitution will be able
to rule over a battlefield.
The US logic
rules that the referendum is a crucial step in
Iraq's democratic transition. But as Iraq is for
the moment a vassal
regime, the occupiers
basically redacted the draft "constitution", which
is based on the November 2003 "made in the USA"
interim constitution known as the Transitional
Administrative Law (TAL). TAL's supervisor was L
Paul Bremer, the former American proconsul in
Baghdad.
The new supervisor is Zalmay
Khalilzad, the White House's former Afghan and
current ambassador in Baghdad. During the
redaction of the constitution, Khalilzad was
described by Reuters as a "ubiquitous presence".
Just in case, Khalilzad and his team of American
Embassy officials even volunteered their own
constitution text to the Iraqis.
At a
minimum, according to the Washington Post, they
"helped type up the draft and translate changes
from English to Arabic". Khalilzad constantly
tampered with the redaction. Then he used any
trick in the "divide and rule" notebook to try to
mollify the Shi'ite parties and "include" Sunnis
in a kind of reconciled, centralized Iraq - to no
avail. For this purpose, he used the services of
the former US intelligence asset and former
interim prime minister (for six months), Iyad
Allawi.
Under a deal partly brokered by
Khalilzad, Iraq's ruling Shi'ites and Kurds have
agreed to make changes to the text of the charter
that voters will consider on Saturday. The accord
calls for a panel that could propose new revisions
next year.
Sunnis can reject the draft
constitution by recording two-thirds majorities in
three of Iraq's 18 provinces. If the constitution
is passed, elections will be held in December to
elect a government. If it fails, the elections
will install another interim administration to
draft a new charter.
But whatever the
outcome of the referendum, one result is certain:
the birth of a sort of "Shi'iteistan" in central
and southern Iraq, virtually autonomous, sitting
on the bulk of Iraq's fabulous oil wealth, and
with privileged cultural/diplomatic ties with
Tehran. This certainly was not what Khalilzad's
masters in Washington had dreamed of.
Iraq's Shi'ites, on the historical brink
of their "intellectual and political
emancipation", as the Shi'ite-based Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI)
put it, have clearly seen through Khalilzad's
meddling game.
Ali al-Adad, a member of
the central committee of the SCIRI, described it
in al-Hayat newspaper as "an attempt to reshuffle
the cards, with the aim to embarrass Shi'ite
negotiators under the pretext of reinforcing
national unity".
The creation of
Shi'iteistan is non-negotiable, as for Shi'ites it
means direct control over oil. Al-Adad added, "The
adoption of a set of measures putting limitations
on the creation of federal provinces ... would
make it difficult for the Shi'ites to set up a
province in the center and south in the future."
The SCIRI, already in power alongside the
Dawa Party, is getting the constitution it
wanted. From Najaf, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani
has already stated this is what he wanted too and
urged the Shi'ite masses to vote "yes".
But there are fissures even among
Shi'ites. Sheikh Jawad al-Khalessi, the imam of
the Kazimiya mosque in Baghdad, said that the
constitution "answers to American objectives, but
not the aspirations of Iraqis". He personally
called for a boycott, "but I know that George W
Bush is already preparing his declaration on the
success of the constitution". Kalessi has a
counter-proposal: a timetable for the end of the
military occupation; UN supervision of Iraqi
affairs; and UN-supervised elections.
What
the whole constitutional show has achieved so far
is to intensify Sunni Arab resistance. But Sunnis,
as well as Shi'ites, also have nuanced takes on
the matter. They may see through the "divide and
rule" tactics inherent in any colonial project.
But some, like the Iraq Islamic Party, finally
decided to support - or at least not to boycott -
the constitution vote because of the compromise on
how the document can be amended.
For Sheikh Harith
al-Dhari, secretary general of the powerful Sunni
Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), support for
this constitution could only come after a set of
conditions were met: a timetable for the end of
military occupation; a definition of terrorism;
full recognition of the Iraqi resistance; and full
reinstatement of the Iraqi army.
Last
Saturday, 21 Sunni Arab organizations, including
the AMS, rejected the constitution, saying it
"bears in it the germs of Iraq's division, the
loss of its Arab identity and the plundering of
its national wealth".
Sheikh Zakaria
Tamimi, leader of the Sunni High Committee for
Dawa, Irshad and Fatwa (Call, Guidance and
Religious Decree) also voted "no". The majority of
Sunni Arab organizations encouraged their
supporters to register en masse - and that's what
they did. But the aim is to defeat the
constitution by the two-thirds of "no" votes in
the three predominantly Sunni Arab provinces.
Tampering with a ghost
Many people in Iraq have not even seen a copy of
the draft constitution. And it went through so
many published drafts no one really knows what
still stands. The "official", UN-printed final draft -
5 million copies of which started to be
distributed less than two weeks before the vote - is
already history. Not to mention that a
mid-September UN internal confidential report
suggests the constitution is a recipe for the
breakup of Iraq.
So caught between
resistance crossfire and yet one more US-imposed
deadline, Iraqis are essentially voting for a
ghost few have seen, and even if they have, it is
not the genuine article: it will certainly be
amended after a new parliament is elected on
December 15. Moreover, whenever "lawmaker"
Khalilzad is not happy, he will veto. Most of
Iraq's extremely intractable issues will have to
be debated later.
To compound the mess,
the UN had to convince the current Iraqi
parliament to reverse its decision to allow a
majority of "potential", not actual, voters to
decide the outcome of the referendum. Shi'ites and
Kurds just wanted to make absolutely sure that
Sunnis would not reject the constitution in three
provinces - Anbar, Salah al-Din and Nineveh - of
Iraq's 18. At least the original rules are again
prevailing, according to which Sunnis can veto the
constitution by getting a two-thirds "no" vote in
three provinces, even if it is approved by a
national majority.
After three
decades of no possibility of political
expression under Saddam and two-and-a-half years of
occupation, no wonder voters are confused. There's
the impression that if this ghost can be tampered with,
even days before the vote, and so few have even
seen the original, anything goes. Even more
disturbing is that most Shi'ites and Sunnis will vote -
"yes" or "no" - based not on a democratic exercise
of their personal political beliefs, but on a fatwa
from Sistani or a proclamation by the AMS.
Disappearing acts
Modern constitutions take years to be
debated and written. The TAL ordered that Iraqis should
form a government and write a constitution in
six months. No wonder the rush job will be
infinitely amended - not to mention the explosive risk
of being implemented over the refusal of one
of the country's key communities, the Sunni
Arabs. Any constitution is supposed to avoid this
kind of problem, not provoke it.
The definitive recipe for the breakup of Iraq is
Article 115. It states:
Every province or more has the right
to establish a region based on a request for a
referendum to be submitted in one of the
following ways: 1) A request from one-third
of the members in each of the provincial
councils in the provinces that wish to establish
a region. 2) A request from one-tenth of the
voters in each of the provinces that wish to
establish a region.
In practice, this
means that any two provinces can decide to become
a "region" - with different laws from other
regions (that's exactly what Kurds and Shi'ites
want). Obviously, a region with its own laws,
government and army is practically an independent
country. The SCIRI, which controls nine of Iraq's
18 provinces, is already operating in this manner.
Another key article disappeared from the
final (ie, today's) draft. It used to be Article
16, according to which:
1) It is forbidden for Iraq to be
used as a base or corridor for foreign troops.
2) It is forbidden to have foreign military
bases in Iraq. 3) The National Assembly can,
when necessary, and with a majority of two
thirds of its members, allow what is mentioned
in 1 and 2 of this article.
The
blatant contradiction speaks for itself. In the
final draft, there's no reference to the crucial
issue of occupation troops or occupation military
bases - which raises the question: is Iraq set up
to be under permanent US military occupation?
And it's one, two, three, what are we
fighting for Of Iraq's 18 provinces, seven
- Baghdad, Babil, Anbar, Salah al-Din, Nineveh,
Kirkuk and Diyala - are in the center-north. Apart
from the Sunni-majority Anbar, Salah al-Din and
Nineveh, both Baghdad and Diyala are at least half
Sunni. These are all important provinces, holding
13 million people, roughly half of Iraq's
population - and that includes the 6 million
people living in the capital, Baghdad.
The
resistance is very active in all of these
provinces - and not only in four, as the Pentagon
maintains. As things stand, with or without a
constitution, the resistance and the guerrillas
can continue to cause havoc in these seven
provinces on a daily basis for a long time.
If the constitution is rejected
this Saturday, nothing will change, as far as
Iraqis are concerned. The Bremer-approved TAL
remains in place. There will still be
parliamentary elections in December, and a new
interim parliament will have to start all over
again. Shi'ites will be furious. But for them it's
not the end of the game. The new parliament will
once again be dominated by Shi'ites and a modified
version of this tampered constitution will
resurface.
If the constitution is
rejected, the different strands of the Sunni Arab
resistance movement - as well as al-Qaeda in Iraq
- will be encouraged, because, for them, although
with nuances, this is the occupiers' piece of
paper. But even if the constitution is approved,
the same thing will happen. Sunni Arabs will
concentrate on the fact that they have been
excluded, they are out of the game and have
nothing left to lose. The resistance will become
even bloodier. There couldn't have been a more
constitutional way to civil war.
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