Iraq’s federalism plan dropped, official says

BAGHDAD, Iraq – The speaker of the Iraqi parliament said Tuesday that a controversial plan to partition the country into three autonomous regions is politically dead.

Mahmoud al-Mashhadani said in an interview that legislation to implement a concept known as federalism, which threatened to collapse the country’s fragile multisect government, would likely be postponed indefinitely after a meeting of political leaders today.

The federalism plan would create a Shiite region in southern Iraq much like the autonomous zone in the north controlled by the Kurds. Sunnis have generally opposed the plan, on grounds it would leave them only with vast swaths of desert in the country’s middle, devoid of the oil reserves in the other regions.

The constitution that Iraq adopted last fall allows for a form of federalism. Sunni parties supported the charter only reluctantly and joined the current government on condition of a resumption of federalism discussions, in which they hoped to kill the concept.

“If federalism is to be applied now, it will lead to the secession of the south and the establishment of an Islamist extremist state in the center of the country,” said al-Mashhadani, an outspoken Sunni Arab who is the third-ranking official in the government. “It is not possible to venture or to start the application of federalism now.”

“Look, Iraqi blood is more important than federalism,” he said.

The head of the largest Shiite political coalition in Iraq, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, is the strongest backer of legislation that would begin translating the constitution’s vague concepts of federalism into law.

In the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Tuesday, al-Hakim issued a full defense of federalism, which he described as a basic constitutional right of all Iraqis. Analysts say al-Hakim hopes to become the leader of the southern Shiite region, which would comprise about nine provinces out of Iraq’s 18.

“We believe federalism is one of the administrative methods that would help the people gain their rights; undo the injustices; and prevent discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin, sect or religion,” al-Hakim said.

But support for the plan began to erode after a vast array of Sunni, Shiite and secular groups boycotted parliament on Sunday to protest the plan. Al-Mashhadani said Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered Shiite cleric in Iraq, had ordered Shiite politicians to back off from the plan in order to prevent infighting.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, in his first state visit to Iran on Tuesday, discussed ways to improve the security situation in Iraq with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. American officials have accused Tehran of fomenting violence in Iraq by supporting Shiite militias.