Shiite, Sunni Iraqis must meet halfway
Whether or not the United States can draw down its troops in Iraq anytime soon depends on the Iraqis.
This is the consensus that has been reached by the Bush administration and the U.S. military. That’s why there’s such intense focus on the Iraqi constitutional process.
That process – it was hoped – would suck in Iraq’s disaffected Sunni minority, the power brokers under Saddam Hussein, who now fuel the insurgency. If Sunni moderates were drawn into politics, the theory goes, they would reject hard-line Baathists and jihadists who want to continue the fight. But, as we saw last week, there’s no guarantee the process will work.
Drawing in Sunnis will involve much more than putting words to paper, or last week’s haggling over a draft constitution, which Sunnis rejected.
The real struggle – going on behind the constitutional debate – concerns immediate life-and-death matters.
Either Iraq’s different sects and ethnic groups will reach consensus on sharing power and oil revenues – the key issues in the constitutional tug – or they are likely to sink into a full-fledged civil war that would also engulf U.S. soldiers.
Despite facile comparisons, America’s struggle over its own Constitution was a picnic compared to Iraq’s. In Philadelphia, followers of Madison and Jefferson did not murder each other’s supporters or blow up each other’s churches.
The Founding Fathers built on a centuries-old British legal tradition dating to the Magna Carta. The Iraqi constitution writers must overcome a past in which internal politics was governed by guns, not by laws.
At the heart of the Iraqi constitutional struggle is the issue of federalism – whether the country will retain a strong centralized government or devolve power to regional states.
This sounds similar to the travails of our 13 colonies, but it is very, very different. The wrong kind of federalism could split Iraq into three parts – one of which would fall under heavy Iranian influence, another that could become a bastion for radical Sunni jihadists.
The right kind of federalism will demand an incredible show of statesmanship by Iraqi leaders.
Iraq suffered under a strong central state, which was hijacked by Sunni Arab dictators who persecuted non-Arab Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south. The Kurds developed an autonomous region under U.S. protection during the 1990s, and they refuse to live again under such tight central authority.
Most Iraqis have come to accept the Kurdish demand for a strongly autonomous region. But the issue of federalism became explosive when Shiites recently asked for the same.
Shiite Muslims predominate in several southern and central Iraqi provinces, and Iraq’s richest oil fields are concentrated in the south. Some say the demand for their own kind of federalism grew from Shiite attempts to solidify their region, as insurgents killed more and more Shiite civilians. Some say it was provoked by the Kurds’ demands, especially the demand for more control of oil revenue in their region.
Last month, I interviewed Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the largest Shiite political party, known as SCIRI (Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq). “We say federalism should be for all Iraq, and not just for certain parts, if there is a decision to have a federal system,” he said. Hakim recently startled Iraqis by calling for a Shiite super-state in the center and north that could include up to half of Iraq’s provinces. This raised the prospect of a strong, oil-rich Kurdish state in the north and an oil-rich Shiite mega-state in the south, with a few weak Sunni provinces in the middle, lacking any oil. Sunni fears were compounded by language in the draft constitution that hinted the regions would control revenue from future oil finds. A compromise is visible here. If Shiites agreed that no more than three provinces could join together to form a state, Sunnis might have less fear of a Shiite super-region opting out of Iraq and falling under the aegis of Iran. Ditto if Sunnis were guaranteed a share of oil revenue from future discoveries in the north and south.
What makes constitutional compromise so difficult is that recent Iraqi history is so bitter. Shiites point out that they are the majority, long oppressed by a Sunni government. Shiite leaders are understandably bitter that Sunni insurgents are bombing Shiite mosques and killing Shiite civilians with abandon. They question whether Sunni politicians can or will cause that violence to abate. But this is a time of testing. Iraqi Shiites don’t want their country to fall apart. Even though they now have the upper hand in politics, they need to bring Sunnis into the tent.
If they don’t do so, Iraq’s Sunnis will campaign to defeat the constitution in an October referendum, and violence will surge. U.S. troops will be caught in the middle.
U.S. policy and Iraqi’s future rest on the ability of Shiite leaders to be statesmen, and the ability of disaffected Sunnis to meet them halfway. If Iraqis can reach a political consensus, the constitution won’t be an issue. If they don’t, watch out.