With the approval of the revised
constitution on Saturday by a strong majority of
its citizens [1], Iraq would seem to be poised to
enter a new and peaceful phase of the post-Saddam
Hussein era.
But viewed from the
perspective of the Middle East's recent history,
particularly the failed negotiating strategies
behind the collapse of the Oslo peace process,
Saturday's referendum will likely neither end the
insurgency nor bring the country closer to
significant democratic development.
The
original draft of the constitution did set
important benchmarks
for democracy and
personal freedom for Iraqis. It even concludes
with a statement on environmental protection that
Americans should envy.
But these advances
are overshadowed by what the constitution left
out. Specifically, there are no references to
three issues that are of primary concern to most
Arab, and especially Sunni Iraqis: a prohibition
on the long-term presence of foreign - read
American - troops in the country; a firm statement
emphasizing Iraqi control of production and
distribution of the country's oil resources; and a
commitment to rebuilding the social infrastructure
that was devastated by the invasion and subsequent
wholesale privatization of the country's economy
under US auspices.
For most every Arab
Iraqi the withdrawal of all American and other
foreign troops is the sine qua non for
ending the insurgency. That the constitutional
negotiators couldn't include any prohibition of
foreign troops, or deal straightforwardly with the
other two core issues, demonstrates the continuing
and largely deleterious power of the US in the
country's internal affairs.
In this
framework, three out of the four amendments passed
last week to assuage Sunni voters will not achieve
their aim. The first amendment, adding the phrase
"The constitution is the guarantee of the unity of
the country", might have important symbolic value,
but is meaningless if the violence and insurgency
continue. The second, mandating Arabic as an
official language in Kurdistan, will also make
little difference for Arabs living in Kurdistan
if, as is case with Arabic in Israel, official
recognition is not translated into acceptance by
the Kurdish majority of Arabic as a language of
public discourse.
The third amendment,
slowing down the de-Ba'athification program and
ending the purge of former party members who
weren't directly involved in the former regime's
crimes, is the one positive step of the four, as
it will go a long way to ameliorating the concerns
of Sunni politicians, and even ordinary workers,
who were part of the Ba'ath Party during the
previous regime.
But the final and most
important amendment, setting up a parliamentary
committee to suggest a one-time set of changes or
amendments to the constitution after the elections
in December, will likely not bring any of the
changes to the constitution that Sunnis are
demanding.
Even if every eligible Sunni
voter had voted on Saturday and in the
parliamentary elections scheduled for December,
they will remain too small a minority to change
the constitution in a manner that would shift
significant resources, revenues or political power
away from Kurds and Shi'ites and to their
communities.
Because of this, the
statement by President Jalal Talabani that the
constitution had addressed all Sunni concerns is
simply not true. More accurate is the statement
made by Shi'ite legislator Saad Jawad that the
last-minute amendments were "an added bonus" to
convince Sunnis to vote for the constitution
without making any substantive changes to the
balance of power enshrined therein.
Given
this situation, it is highly unlikely that Sunni
leaders will change their view of the insurgency
as the only true bargaining chip they have to
force Kurds and Shi'ites to sacrifice some of
their power, or to achieve a full withdrawal of
coalition forces from Iraq.
And so it
appears that the constitutional process being
celebrated in Iraq and Washington is setting up
Iraq to repeat the mistakes of the Oslo peace
process, where negotiations over the hard issues
were continually postponed on the assumption the
process would move forward with enough momentum to
force compromises at the end stage.
But as
in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, without
significant improvements on the ground in peoples'
lives, and strong confidence that their country
will be free of foreign troops and have a
functioning economy in the near future, even
significant progress at the political level
progress will be no match for the anger of
millions of Arab Iraqis, Sunni and Shi'ite alike,
at a new order in which they can reasonably claim
to have little, if any stake.
Note [1] More than 61%
of registered Iraqi voters took part in Saturday's
referendum on a permanent constitution. Initial
results suggest that Kurdish and Shi'ite "yes"
votes swamped the Sunnis, not surprising as
Shi'ites and Kurds respectively comprise about 60%
and 20% of Iraq's 27 million people. The
constitution will pave the way for elections in
December that will replace the transitional
administration with a four-year parliament and the
first permanent government since the 2003
invasion.
Mark LeVine, professor
of Modern Middle Eastern History, Culture and
Islamic Studies, UC Irvine. Author of Why They
Don't Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of
Evil (Oneworld Publications, 2005)
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd.
All rights reserved. Please contact us for
information on sales, syndication and republishing
.)
