No Agreement
Reached On
Iraqi Constitution
By James Cogan
17 August 2005
World
Socialist Web
After
six weeks of negotiations and intense pressure from Washington, the
Iraqi political factions supporting the US occupation of Iraq failed
to agree on the wording of a new constitution by the August 15 deadline
set down by the Bush administration. At 20 minutes to midnight, the
parliament voted instead to give the committee drawing up the document
until August 22 to finalise a draft.
The reasons for
the delay serve to highlight the utterly anti-democratic and illegitimate
character of the entire process. Under the protection of thousands of
US troops and completely sealed off from the Iraqi people, the layers
of the Iraqi ruling class who have been prepared to collaborate with
the colonial conquest of the country are using sectarianism and communalism
to try and lay claim to a portion of the spoils of war.
The inability to
reach an agreement by August 15 was due to the refusal of Arab Sunni
legislators to bow down to the demands of the Kurdish nationalist and
main Shiite fundamentalist organisations that the future Iraqi state
have a federal structure, with a weak central government and powerful
autonomous regions.
The three Kurdish
provinces of northern Iraq are already an autonomous zone, with its
own regional government and armed forces. The Kurdish leadership is
demanding that the constitution expand their territory to include the
oil-rich area around the city of Kirkuk. At one point, the Kurdish delegation
proposed that the constitution specifically give the Kurdish region
the right to secede from Iraq in eight years time.
The Shiite Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) has raised demands
for the establishment of an autonomous region in southern Iraq, incorporating
nine, predominantly Shiite-populated provinces where some 50 percent
of the countrys oil industry is located. Both the Shiite and Kurdish
factions demanded that regional governments be given control over most
of the income generated by the oil industry.
Federalism has been
endorsed by the main Shiite cleric Ali al-Sistani, who has consistently
advocated taking advantage of the US invasion of Iraq to gain greater
wealth and political power for the Shia elite and clergy. As well as
autonomy, SCIRI and Daawa called for the constitution to give
a guiding role to the Shiite clergy and assert Islam as
the primary source of the countrys legal code. Such
a measure would make way for Iranian-style religious courtsgiving
Sistani and the Shiite religious establishment another source of privilege.
Representatives
of the Sunni Arab establishment, which formed the core support for the
Iraqi state since the countrys independence, denounced the calls
for federalism as a recipe for the countrys break-up. The head
of the Sunni delegation on the constitutional committee, Saleh Mutlak,
declared: If we accept federalism, the country will be finished.
Against a federal
structure, the Sunni participants in the constitutional committee advocated
the maintenance of a strong central government in Baghdad that controls
the bulk of the oil revenues. Their motives are just as venal as those
of the Shiite and Kurdish bourgeoisie. Under the Baathists, a dictatorial
regime in Baghdad was used to appropriate the lions share of Iraqs
energy wealth for a narrow Sunni elite, against their Kurdish and Shiite
rivals. The central and western areas of the country, where most Sunnis
live, have little in the way of oil and gas.
As the horse-trading
has gone on, the US has made little attempt to hide its frustration
with the failure of the Iraqi factions to produce a document. Bush and
other officials repeatedly declared that the deadline should be met.
In particular, US
pressure had been brought to bear on the Shiite parties that dominate
the Iraqi government to make overtures toward the Sunni elite. The main
Sunni political and religious organisations called for a boycott of
the elections earlier this year, while Sunni groups are fighting the
bulk of the guerilla war against the American forces in Iraq. As the
war drags on, and popular opposition swells in the US, the hope in Washington
has been that the insurgency can be weakened by buying off a section
of the Sunni establishment with promises that they will continue to
enjoy a privileged position.
More fundamentally,
the constitution and the election to follow in December are considered
crucial to the transformation of Iraq into an American client-state.
The government that will be installed by the end of the year will be
able to begin the privatisation of Iraqs state-owned oil industry
and sign off on agreements establishing long-term US military bases.
The US military plans centre on the Iraqi government having sufficient
legitimacy and armed forces to gradually reduce American troop numbers
to 60,000, making them available for use elsewhere.
The raising of autonomy
demands by the Shiites in the past few weeks, and Sunni recriminations,
therefore stunned the Bush administration, according to
unnamed officials cited in the New York Times on August 14. According
to a report by the British Observer, the impatience and anger reached
the point on Sunday where the US ambassador in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad,
simply handed the Iraqis a constitution written by US officials and
told them it was a guide to compromise.
Khalilzad told CNN
later: This constitution can be a national compact bringing Sunnis
in, isolating extremists and Baathist-hardliners and setting the stage
over time for defeating them.
The US draft dealt
with the intractable divisions over Shiite autonomy in the south by
deferring any decision until after the elections in December. While
the Shiite parties agreed under US pressure, however, the Sunni group
allegedly rejected the deal as it simply delayed the matter instead
of ruling it out.
Over next days there
is little doubt that vast pressure will be brought to bear to reach
a settlement and ensure a constitution that is endorsed by all three
of the main factions is ready for August 22. There are only two alternativesboth
of which would dramatically heighten the problems facing US imperialism
in Iraq.
One is the dissolution
of the parliament that was elected on January 30, new elections and
the formation of a new constitutional committee. The other is the Shiite
and Kurdish blocs using their control of the existing parliament to
ram through a constitution that satisfies their demands regardless of
the opposition.
This would be tantamount
to a declaration of civil war against the Sunni population by the US-installed
Baghdad regime. As well as fueling the insurgency, it would most likely
result in a concerted campaign by Sunni political and religious organisations
for a rejection of the document in the referendum that is scheduled
to be held on October 15. A two-thirds No vote in three
of Iraqs 18 provinces prevents the constitution being adopted.
The three province
veto clause was inserted into the political framework on the insistence
of the Kurdish parties, with the backing of the US, so they could defeat
any constitution that did not deliver autonomy. It now has the potential
to rebound against them. At least four provinces have a clear Sunni
majority.
None of the discussions
and conflicts around the constitution reflect, in any sense, the needs
and aspirations of the vast mass of the Iraqi people. The US invasion
and occupation has produced a situation in which millions of people
are struggling to survive without steady incomes and reliable electricity,
water and other basic services. Every day dozens of civilians are killed
or maimed by US-led troops or in indiscriminate bombings carried out
by Islamic extremist opponents of the occupation. As many as 4,000 civilians
have lost their lives just since the January 30 election.
The greater the
social catastrophe facing the Iraqi working class, the more every faction
of the ruling class has promoted communalism to both deflect away from
the crisis and as the means of securing power and privilege for themselves.
The logical outcome is the outbreak of fratricidal conflict that will
ultimately only serve to benefit US imperialism and its agenda of dominating
the resources and territory of the Middle East.