The constitution submitted to the Iraqi Parliament is a disaster in waiting. It is going to fall at the first hurdle: October’s referendum. To be ratified, the constitution not only has to get 50 percent of the votes nationally, but must not be rejected by two-thirds of voters in at least three of Iraq’s 18 provinces. That gives the Sunnis the veto and barring an unlikely change of heart, they will use it; they may be a minority but in four of the country’s 18 provinces, they are the majority.
That means at least a further couple of months of rancorous argument and, certain stalemate at the end of it. But this gridlock over federalism threatens an even greater disaster. The fact has to be faced that the very existence of Iraq is now at stake. The two sides — Sunnis opposing federalism and Kurds and Shiites insistent on it — are so entrenched in their positions that the very outcome the Sunnis fear from federalism — that it will lead to the breakup of Iraq — has moved a step closer to reality. The more the Kurds and Shiites feel thwarted over their ambitions, the more resentful they will become. That resentment may be directed toward the Sunnis and the notion of Iraq itself which the Sunnis champion. It must not be allowed to happen.
The danger is that ultimately the Kurds and Shiites may decide that they have had enough, that the Sunnis can keep Baghdad, central Iraq and that they will go their own separate ways, taking the oil wealth with them. Politically, the two have the numerical power to change the rules to ensure that what they want happens in Iraq.
Yet there is a way out of this explosive impasse. Sunni opposition to the constitution is not just about fears of a breakup; it is about ensuring that they get a fair share of the pie. What worries the Sunnis, and rightly so, is a federal system that gives the Kurds and the Shiites all the oil wealth because the oil is in the Kurdish north and the Shiite south. Federalism can work provided that enough of Iraq’s oil wealth is allocated centrally to ensure that everyone benefits. In short, political devolution but less so economic devolution.
In fact, the Sunnis have everything to fear from a united, nonfederal Iraq. In such a setup, they would almost certainly be kept out of power permanently, given meaningless political trinkets such as the ministries of culture or railways to mask the fact that real power was in Kurdish and Shiite hands. At least in a federal Iraq, they would be the masters of the capital and central Iraq. But federalism will only work, as has been seen in Indonesia’s Aceh province, if it is based on economic justice. Justice for all must be the basis of an Iraqi constitution. Without it, there is no future for the country.
