IRAQ´S FUTURE

by RAY FLEMING
ALL constitutions should find space for historical reflection and future ambition. The draft Iraq constitution finalised last Sunday does not fail in this respect. “We, the sons of Mesopotamia, land of the prophets, resting place of the holy imams, the leaders of civilisation and the creators of the alphabet, the cradle of arithmetic...” invokes the glorious past. For the future there is this: “We, the Iraqi people now rising from suppression and looking forward to a future in a republican, federal, democratic and pluralist system, have made a pact to respect the rule of law, reject the politics of aggression, give attention to the rights of women, men and children, spread the cutlture of diversity, and uproot terrorism.” And at a ceremony in Baghdad's Green Zone on Sunday the president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, said that the constitution was “the embodiment of the nation” and “a constitution for Arabs, Sunnis and Shiites, for Kurds, for Caledonians, Assyrians, Christians and Muslims”.
IT is natural that most of the 70 commissioners who have worked for many weeks to complete the constitution against elastic deadlines should be pleased with their work. It is understandable, however, that they did not use the euphoric language favoured by President Bush. They have experienced at first hand the deeprooted opposition of the representatives of the Sunni Arabs to some of the most important parts of the constitution and they also know that many areas of disagreement among themselves have only been papered over under intense pressure from their American advisors. None the less five million copies of the constitution are now being printed for distribution throughout Iraq in advance of a referendum on it which will be held in October. That is in itself an achievement and should be recognised as such. It should also be recognised that the Sunnis' stubborn refusal to sign or respect the constitution represents a defeat for a key part of US policy in Iraq which is focussed on an end to the insurgency and a consequent withdrawal of American forces. Although the Sunnis had generally refused to vote in the assembly election earlier this year, Washington had hoped that involving them in the drafting of the constitution would persuade Sunni communities of the benefits of becoming part of the political process, and that from that would come a lessening of support for the insurgency which is centered in Sunni areas. Instead the reverse has happened; the insistence of the other parties to the constitution, the Kurds and the Shiites, on a federal rather than a unitary structure, has left the Sunnis isolated and feeling that as a community they are being punished for the ascendancy of the Sunni regimes which ruled Iraq from 1920 until the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. This largely self-imposed isolation of the Sunnis may have serious negative consequences: the terrorist insurgency may intensify as the referendum draws near and escalate further if the constitution is approved by the nation as a whole; the Sunni voters will probably reject the constitution and, if a majority of them do so in each of their three province, under referendum provisions the constitution would be defeated and the whole electoral and constitutional process would have to begin again. Such an outcome would widen the divisions between the Kurds and Shiites on the one hand and the Sunnis on the other with, as a worst-case scenario, the increased possibility of civil war and a break-up of the land now known as Iraq.
LEAVING aside this gloomy prospect, there is likely to be concern also about the provisions in the constitution that “Islam is the religion of the state and a main source of legislation” and that “No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam”; there is also a complementary provision for clerical experts on sharia (Islamic) law to sit on the supreme federal court. Such provisions are, of course, matters for the Iraqi people as a whole. But if they survive the coming months of consultation and revision it will surely be difficult for President Bush and Mr Blair to avoid recognising that the outcome of their invasion of Iraq will have been to move it closer to an Islamic state like Iran than to their hoped-for western-style democracy.