NAJAF, Iraq, 12 August 2005 — With four days left until Iraq’s leaders have promised a draft constitution, powerful Islamist leaders made a dramatic bid yesterday to have a big, autonomous Shiite region across the oil-rich south.
The head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) spelled out his demands to tens of thousands of chanting supporters in the Shiite holy city of Najaf.
But minority Sunni and secular opponents, as well as rival Shiite Islamists in the coalition national government, swiftly poured cold water on an idea that fueled fears about sectarian battles over oil and Iranian-style religious rule in the south.
Some saw it as a negotiating tactic ahead of a self-imposed deadline on Monday to present the draft to parliament; a top Shiite negotiator, who dismissed the demand made by SCIRI chief Abdel Aziz Al-Hakim, said 16 points were still in dispute.
It was unclear whether the row — and continued arguments over the extent of Islamic law — would delay delivery of a text that Washington hopes can help quell the Sunni insurgency.
The crucial issue is the nature of federalism and the quest for wording to satisfy Kurdish demands for continued autonomy in the north, Shiite hopes for some new autonomy in the south, and also address concerns among Sunni Arabs and others in the center that they not be left with a rump Iraqi state deprived of oil.
“If we can deal with that...we should finish in the next few days so the draft will be ready on time,” Bahaa Al-Araji, a senior Shiite on the constitution drafting panel, told Reuters.
“If there were Shiite and Sunni regions it would simply entrench sectarianism and destroy the unity of Iraq.”
US diplomats, active on the sidelines of talks on what is a vital project for American interests, have clear reservations about SCIRI’s traditional ties to Washington’s regional foe Iran and make plain they will not stand for clerical rule in Iraq.
Hakim, a striking figure in clerical robes whose long exile in Tehran make him a figure of suspicion for many Sunnis, was backed up in his demands at the Najaf rally by the leader of the Badr movement, formed in Iran as the armed wing of SCIRI.
“They are trying to prevent the Shiites from enjoying their own federalism,” Badr leader Hadi Al-Amery told the crowd, which had gathered to commemorate the assassination two years ago by a car bomb in Najaf of Hakim’s brother, the former SCIRI leader.
“What have we got from the central government but death?” he said, recalling decades of oppression under Sunni-dominated rule from Baghdad, most recently by Saddam Hussein.
“We think it necessary to form one whole region in the south,” said Hakim, a major force in the coalition that came to power in January’s election, secured by US military force.
But Laith Kubba, spokesman for Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, an Islamist from rival Shiite party Dawa, said: “The idea of a Shiite region...is unacceptable to us.”
“It’s a bad idea,” Kubba told Reuters.
Yet despite the initial cold shoulder, it may be significant that Hakim made his announcement hours after meeting Iraq’s top cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, in Najaf on Wednesday.
Though Sistani, who rarely appears in public, has typically made no comment, his backing could be vital and some political sources close to Islamist thinking say there is broader support, well beyond SCIRI, for the autonomy project in years to come.
Hakim again pressed for Islam to be “the main source” of law in the new Iraq, a proposal that alarms some women and minority groups who already accuse SCIRI of religious vigilantism. They mostly prefer a reference to Islam as “a source” of law.
If, as seems likely, the Islamists are unable to push their policies through in the broader Iraq, it could be tempting to enact them at least in an autonomous Shiite half of the nation.
Hakim and Amery’s demands, by including central Iraq, went beyond a project floated around the southern city of Basra to merge three provinces into a new federal region.
The area from the holy cities of Kerbala and Najaf, south of Baghdad, to Basra has a mostly Shiite population comprising close to half of Iraq’s 26 million people.
“We hoped this day would never come,” said Saleh Al-Mutlak, a leading Sunni politician. “We believe that the Arabs, whether Sunni or Shiite, are one. We totally reject any attempt to stir up sectarian issues to divide Iraq.”
