My starting point is that I have always been in favor of a united Iraq. In the long run it has the potential to be a strong and successful country, with its staggeringly large oil reserves and great rivers. I have always been against this country of twenty-six million people breaking apart, most likely into three separate countries only two of which would have substantial oil reserves.
The Kurdish North and the Shiite South, after the collapse of a united Iraq, would have continual problems with Turkey and Iran respectively.
I have thus been much alarmed by the grave political disarray in Iraq in recent days over the proposed constitution. I had been looking for high statesmanship from the Shiite leaders in government in Baghdad, involving further concessions from them to the Sunni heartlands to ease the pain there over the constitution.
But events took a different and highly dangerous course. I have few good words to say over the strategy, or rather incredible lack of strategy, put forward by the Americans and the British for Iraq. People had hoped that Iraq’s own politicians might be able to make up for this deficiency.
To my amazement, and at an absurdly late hour, the Iraqi government decided to change the rules over the constitution to ensure its safe passage on Oct. 15. It had previously been agreed by government and Parliament that a two-thirds majority against it, in at least three of the country’s eighteen provinces, would legally block it. This provision gave the Sunni minority its right to have its views respected by the Shiite and Kurdish majority. Nothing more, nothing less; in a democracy minorities as well as majorities have their rights. The government, and Shiite and Kurdish MPs on Oct.2, decided that a two-thirds majority of all the registered voters would now be necessary in at least three provinces to block the constitution. They did so because there was widespread expectation that the constitution as drafted would not pass.
The change was absurd. In the United Kingdom a two-thirds majority of all registered voters for or against any particular proposal is very rarely achieved. In the Sunni areas of Iraq, where murder and mayhem are all around, a majority of such a size would be impossible. Casting a vote can be risking a life. The hurdle was set now far too high — and everybody on all sides of the constitutional argument knew it.
On Oct. 4 the UN legal team in Iraq, presumably after carefully consulting its base in New York, made a clear, courageous and principled stand. José Aranaz, the team’s senior legal adviser, announced on behalf of the UN that the change just agreed by the Iraqi Parliament was “not acceptable and would not meet international standards.”
The UN, which is overseeing the vote on Oct. 15, made it clear to reporters that it would not give its seal of approval unless the Parliament reversed its decision. Well done the UN!
It would be agreeable to think the United Kingdom had some input into this UN decision. One wonders what talks the Iraqi government had had with the UN legal team earlier. Did it not consider the Sunni leaders would most likely call for a boycott, which they did, after such a change on Oct. 2? Such a boycott would have deeply undermined the constitution’s credibility for the Sunnis comprise about 20 percent of Iraq’s population and they are in a majority in four provinces.
After Aranaz’s announcement, and, we are told, some behind-the-scenes pressure from the United States ambassador the government had second thoughts and invited the Parliament to reverse its decision. It did. 119 Members of the Iraqi National Assembly voted to change back and 28 disagreed on Oct. 5.
While, of course, I welcome the change back to defining voters as those who vote, one wonders what arguments were used to persuade the members of the National Assembly that had not been employed and discounted before.
I cannot accept it was ever believed in the assembly the international community would be delighted with the earlier move to attempt to get the constitution through. At the end of this mess one is left seriously criticizing the judgment and the wisdom of the Iraqi government on what anyone can appreciate is a matter of the greatest national importance. The constitution and the likely vote have been under discussion in Iraq for many months. One is also left wondering if Iraqis are happy to see their assembly looking like a puppet of the government. Sunnis are entitled to feel they were going to be treated in a disgraceful manner, and have only been saved by international lawyers. They will be even more angry as they attempt to veto the constitution at the ballot box.
