Juan Cole (Salon): The Iraqi constitution: DOA?

[Jack Rabbit]

From Salon.com (Subscription or Day Pass Required)
Dated Friday August 26

The Iraqi constitution: DOA?
Angry and marginalized, Sunnis are threatening to torpedo Iraq's constitution. Disaster looms, and the Bush administration's blunders are largely to blame.
By Juan Cole

On Thursday, the third deadline for finishing Iraq's new constitution passed without agreement, as Sunni leaders balked at Shiite and Kurdish demands for federalism and regional control of oil wealth. In response, Shiite leaders threatened -- yet again -- to bypass the Sunnis, use their majority to approve it in Parliament, and take it to the Iraqi people for a national referendum.

Whether the constitution is sent to the Iraqi people without Sunni approval or is once again returned to the election committee for negotiations is almost irrelevant. The divisions are so intractable that the Sunnis are going to be marginalized, and enraged, in any event. The upshot: America's political vision for Iraq lies in tatters, and the Bush administration has largely itself to blame.

On Tuesday, President George W. Bush issued what could be seen as a threat against Sunni Arab political leaders in Iraq who threatened to launch an uprising (intifada) against the new constitution. Bush said, "This talk about Sunnis rising up, I mean the Sunnis have got to make a choice. Do they want to live in a society that's free, or do they want to live in violence?" Mind you, the politicians who spoke of uprisings and streets aflame were the very ones who participated in the drafting of a new constitution, risking their lives to do so because the guerrillas see this participation as a form of collaboration with the occupiers. They had been frustrated by their marginalization on the drafting committee, and by the high-handed way that Shiites and Kurds have implemented their vision of an Iraq that looks more like the European Union than like a sovereign nation-state.

Read more.

[acmavm]

1. Like I said before the first deadline came and went, what good is a

'Constitution' going to be when these people and their country lies in pieces at their feet and they can't even begin to find a way to work together to try and put it back together.

The Shi'ites was a government based on Islamic law with no rights for anyone but the fundies. As well as the oil rich south of the country. The Kurds want autonomy and the oil rich fields of the north. The Sunnis are being shut out pretty much altogether and they aren't going to take it well. Throw into the mix a foreign government that is occupying their country that wants anything they can pass off as a Consitution, no matter how bad and who gets the shaft, so they can save face. You know, just like the much touted 'election' farce.

No faux Constitution is going to save this mess.

[RedEarth]

2. Excellent article......Cole is a must read each day.....