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Iraq's fate hangs on a yes or no

Passage of the constitution might pave the way for democracy - but it might increase tension in Iraq.

By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN
Published October 10, 2005

This Saturday, Iraqis will vote on a new constitution as ambitious and controversial as the American-led invasion of their country.

The flowery preamble is eight times as long as that of the U.S. Constitution, which the Iraqi version echoes in guaranteeing many rights and freedoms.

The document also contains uniquely Iraqi provisions, including compensation for "the families of martyrs and those wounded by terrorist attacks."

Viewed through the rosiest of glasses, a "yes" vote would continue Iraq firmly on the path of democracy and pave the way for election of a new government in December. But the constitution is so full of compromises, yet leaves so many issues unresolved, that its passage could exacerbate tensions among Iraq's three main groups - Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis.

"It's pretty messy and I think ultimately it won't do anything positive but just aggravate the violence," says Toby Dodge, a senior fellow at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies.

If voters turn down the draft, a new parliament elected this winter would make a fresh attempt to write a constitution - not necessarily a bad thing, another expert says.

"Some people think it would be good if the constitution was rejected so they would have to go back and try to put together a document that was looking more toward an Iraqi nation instead of one protecting the communal rights of Kurds and Shiites," says Sandra Mackey, author of The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein.

"The downside is that if this constitution doesn't go through, will the Shiite religious leaders lose control of their people and will you have a lot of vengeance killings and so forth? That's when civil war really starts. We're teetering on the brink, but we haven't gotten there yet."

Regardless of what happens Saturday, President Bush vows to persevere in Iraq, arguing in a speech last week that withdrawal would lead to a takeover by the al-Qaida terrorist network.

The constitution is expected to draw heavy support from Shiites, who make up about 60 percent of Iraq's 27-million people, and Kurds, a powerful minority who have long enjoyed relative autonomy in three northern provinces.

The document's ultimate fate, though, may rest with the Sunnis, who ran Iraq during Hussein's era but are now in the vanguard of the insurgency.

Under a provision originally intended to protect Kurdish interests, the constitution will fail if rejected by two-thirds of the voters in just three of Iraq's 18 provinces. Sunnis, who comprise the majority in four central provinces, are expected to vote "no" on grounds the document is too heavily weighted in favor of Shiites and Kurds.

A brouhaha erupted last week when Iraq's parliament enacted a last-minute change that would have made it virtually impossible for Sunnis to reject the constitution. Sunni leaders complained the vote was being rigged, and the Shiite/Kurdish-controlled parliament backed off under heavy pressure from the United States and the United Nations.

The attempt to ensure passage "was a mixture of arrogance and stupidity," Dodge says. "It would have made a Sunni boycott (of Saturday's vote) inevitable."

The Bush administration feared a boycott would undercut the validity of the constitution, touted as major step in turning Iraq into a beacon of democracy for the entire Middle East.

The document, whose preamble traces Iraq's history from the "cradle of arithmetic" to Hussein's "sectarian oppression," guarantees equality for all in a "multiethnic, multireligious and multisect country."

Although Islam is the official religion, the constitution provides for freedom of worship and, with some limits, freedoms of the press, expression and peaceful assembly.

Those arrested would enjoy the presumption of innocence, be entitled to a court-appointed lawyer and have their cases heard by an independent judiciary. "All forms of torture, mental and physical, are forbidden," Article 35 says.

"There is plenty of good in there," says Nadim Shehadi, acting head of the Mideast program at London's Royal Institute of International Affairs. "But it's been quite watered down, and many things have been left to be decided later."

Sunnis, many of them former members of Hussein's Baath Party, failed in efforts to block de-Baathification of the government. The constitution creates a commission to purge Baathists, but leaves its fate up to the new parliament to be elected this winter.

Bitter differences also remain over the issue of federalism, whereby Kurds would continue to rule themselves in the oil-rich north and Shiites would establish a ministate in the oil-rich south.

Sunnis, concentrated in areas with no oil, prefer a strong central government, fearing federalism would lead to eventual breakup of the country.

The draft constitution protects existing Kurdish laws, but fails to resolve competing Kurdish and Arab claims to Kirkuk, which sits near one of Iraq's biggest oil fields.

Thousands of Kurds, who are Muslim but not Arab, were forced from the city during Hussein's "Arabization' campaign of the '80s.

Since his regime fell, they have been reclaiming property - reportedly using violence at times - and are intent on establishing Kirkuk as the capital of a future Kurdish nation, both Shiites and Sunnis fear.

The largely secular Kurds, meanwhile, objected to Shiite attempts to make Islam "the main source" of legislation.

The final draft of the constitution stipulates only that Islam be "a" source. It is unclear what would happen if the document's guarantee of equal rights for women clashed with Islamic law, which in many cases treats women as second-class citizens.

Publicly at least, the United States has tried to maintain its distance since Iraq's interim parliament was elected in January and began drafting the constitution. But there are clear American influences, some of which reflect a "do as I say, not as I do" resolve to keep Iraq a weak player on the international scene.

Article 8 says Iraq will abide by the "principles of good neighborliness" and not intervene in the internal affairs of other countries. And Article 9 bans nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

The final draft of the constitution - completed behind schedule in late August - "is a grab bag of aspirations, demands and hopes," Dodge says.

"What we have is a basket into which a series of negotiations have thrown different things they want with very little focus on whether those things are contradictory or legally enforceable."

Last week, food centers began distributing U.N.-published copies of the constitution - printed in Arabic, Kurdish and some less common languages - to Iraq's 15-million eligible voters. Many copies, though, reportedly have been thrown away by Iraqis afraid of being attacked if seen reading the document.

Saturday's vote comes against a sobering backdrop. Since the 2003 invasion, almost 2,000 American troops have been killed while estimates of Iraqi war-related civilian deaths range from 13,800 to more than 30,000.

With the insurgency showing few signs of abating, 55 percent of Americans say the United States should have stayed out of Iraq, while 60 percent want troops to "leave as soon as possible," according to a new CBS poll.

Though she thinks the war was a mistake, Mackey warns pulling out now could lead to a "caldron of chaos" that could send oil prices soaring, spark intervention by neighboring countries and turn Iraq into even more of a terrorism breeding ground than it already is.

"It's in no one's interest for Iraq to totally unravel," she says. "Certainly other countries in the world have as much interest as we have in keeping the Persian Gulf stable. But the Bush administration would have to eat a lot of humble pie and step back and allow some kind of international coalition to go in there."

Shehadi of the Royal Institute remains guardedly optimistic about Iraq's future.

"The country is in a mess, of course, but there is still a political process and a constitutional process. If that collapses and the violence degenerates into civil war, we will look back at everything we've seen so far and think of it as a picnic."

[Last modified October 10, 2005, 01:23:52]