KurdistanObserver.com

Unifying force - or just a peace treaty?

Simon Tisdall
 October 14, 2005
The Guardian

Opinion is divided in Iraq and beyond on whether its new constitution, to be voted on tomorrow, will help to hold the country together - or accelerate its disintegration into three separate, mutually antagonistic Shia, Sunni and Kurdish statelets.
But what is clear is that the document that emerged from tense, and often bad-tempered, US-directed negotiations between Iraq's main communities is very different from the blueprint for a "democratic, federal, pluralistic and united Iraq" originally envisaged by the Bush administration.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador, said at the outset he hoped to produce a "national compact overcoming the loss of trust among Iraq's communities". But what began as a nation-building exercise mutated into the de facto negotiation of a "tripartite peace treaty" amounting to "ratification of a break-up that has already happened," said Peter Galbraith, a former US envoy who attended the talks. "Underneath an Islamic veneer, Iraq's new constitution ratifies the division of Iraq into three disparate entities: Kurdistan in the north, an Iranian-influenced Islamic state in the south, and in the centre, a Sunni region that has no clear political identity," he told the New York Review of Books.

Yet for all its faults, the ultra-loose federal union now proposed represented "the last chance to hold Iraq together," Mr Galbraith said. "It is the most positive political development since the fall of Saddam Hussein ... The alternative is not a more centralised state. It is disintegration and chaos."

The key question in the referendum is supposedly whether the Sunni Arab minority, the big losers in the negotiations, will defeat the charter by mustering two-thirds majorities in any three of the four provinces where they predominate. But the Sunnis are split. The Iraqi Islamic party has backed the constitution; other groups are urging a no vote or a boycott; and some voters may stay away because of threats from Sunni insurgents. Yet with most Shias and Kurds in favour, the constitution looks likely to pass, despite a continuing row over control of Kirkuk and other issues.

A far bigger question concerns the impact of the constitution's many uncomfortable and hurried compromises on Iraq's future governance. Some of its provisions appear barely compatible with a unified state.

The central government will oversee foreign, defence and monetary policy. Otherwise, agreed or proposed federal regions, such as Kurdistan, will control their own military forces and territory, enforce their own laws (which override federal law), raise taxes and distribute water, and enjoy sole authority over new oilfields.

That suggests a limited future role for Iraq's still notional national army, and that the offices of federal president and prime minister could be rendered largely symbolic.

The constitution's vague maxim that "Islam is the official religion of the state and is the basic source of legislation" means in practice that secular Kurdistan will be under no obligation to comply. But it also means that Islamic parties such as the Iranian-backed Sciri, whose leader wants a Shia "super-region" in the south, will be free to impose a strict interpretation of sharia law. That has raised fears that women's rights - of particular concern to Washington, which wishes to portray Iraq as a showpiece for Arab democracy - will be curtailed. That process is already under way in Basra.

"The constitution is fantastic for the Kurds," a senior British official said. But he denied it would encourage moves towards independence there and in the south, while further alienating Sunnis and fuelling the insurgency.

"Overall, it's a decent compromise based on what was do-able. It's a flawed document. But there are a lot of fundamental freedoms in there. It's not the end of the process. Of course it could all go rat-shit. In the end, it's up to the Iraqis."