21 October 2005
Iraq: Life After the Constitution
- By Dilip Hiro
London, Oct 20: The White House has a sound reason to feel upbeat about the referendum on the Iraqi constitution on October 15. The turnout was satisfactory, and the day passed relatively calmly. What is more, the disaffected Sunnis participated in the voting on a large scale. But this participation may not signal an end to the insurgency, facilitating the withdrawal of Anglo-American troops. Nor would the successful adoption of a democratic constitution in Iraq necessarily presage the flowering of democracy in the rest of the Middle East.
What motivated the change among Sunnis? The answer lies in the changing appreciation of their political prospects in new Iraq. In the January election, as well in the recent referendum, the overall voter turnout was 61 percent. But whereas participation of the majority Shia Arabs was constant - roughly 70 percent - there was wide variation among the two minorities, ethnic Kurds and Sunni Arabs, each of them forming one-fifth of the national population.
Last time, Kurds turned up in huge numbers at the polling stations whereas most Sunni Arabs stayed away. This time the roles were reversed. Kurds were lukewarm towards a constitution that lacks a provision for an independent Kurdistan in the near future.
Sunni Arabs decided to register their opposition to a constitution. If Sunnis participate in the forthcoming parliamentary election in December and win proportionate seats, then they will be in a position to impact the parliamentary vote on the amendments to be introduced by the Special Commission in the first four months of the new Parliament. One of the proposals would extend the right to form autonomous region, presently enjoyed only by the mountainous Kurdistan, to the Mesopotamian plains. They perceive this as a preamble to the division of Iraq.
Even if the constitution is ratified, as seems probable, the vote count will establish in concrete terms the extent of their disapproval. Notwithstanding the exact outcome of last week's referendum, the Sunnis are likely to participate in the forthcoming parliamentary elections. The interim parliament resolved that if its successor passes amendments to the constitution (as recommended by a special commission) by a simple majority within the first four months, then the amended constitution would be put to referendum for ratification. This decision has made Sunni Arabs hopeful that they can still impact the country's fledgling constitutional machinery. Whether or not they will is a matter of conjecture.
What is certain, though, is that there will be no lessening of the Sunni resistance to the foreign occupation of Iraq. Most Sunnis remain hostile to the occupiers, partly out of rage at being ousted from their traditionally dominant position in Iraq, and partly out of nationalist sentiment.
Reflecting the prevalent Sunni view, Amir Ismail, a 45-year-old former army colonel in Falluja, told the Guardian that the ballot box was a complement for armed revolt, not a substitute. That is, participation in the referendum and offering armed resistance to occupation are not mutually exclusive,as Irish nationalists in Northern Ireland have demonstrated for many years.
By now, the insurgency has become deeply rooted in central and northwestern Iraq, including Greater Baghdad, which has a quarter of the national population. September was the most violent month in the capital, with 900 corpses arriving at the main morgue. On the eve of the referendum, attacks on the American and Iraqi forces exceeded 100 a day, the highest figure yet.
The alliance between Arab nationalists, represented by the Baath Party, and Islamists remains in place. The allies share the goal of expelling the Anglo-American forces from Iraq. Their well-informed leaders are aware that the latest poll in the United States shows that 59 percent of Americans want the US troops withdrawn "as soon as possible even if Iraq is not completely stable."
Even though the insurgency continues, would the rise of a constitutional state in Iraq inspire democracy elsewhere in the region? Judging by the disparate nature of the multi-ethnic states in the Middle East the answer probably would be, "Not so fast." One size does not fit all.
No other Arab country is like Iraq, with its ethnic and sectarian divisions between Sunnis, Shias and Kurds. None of them shares the history of Mesopotamia, the forerunner to Iraq, which changed hands between the Ottoman Turkish Empire and the Safavid Persian Empire several times until the (Sunni) Ottomans finally incorporated it into their empire in 1638.
By contrast, Egypt, the Arab world's leading nation, is an ethnically homogenous country with 99 percent of its citizens being ethnic Arabs, 94 percent Sunni Muslim, and the rest Christian. It has also been a highly centralized state. It had a vigorous, albeit corrupt, multi-party system under King Farouq, who was overthrown by nationalist military officers in 1952. Since then it has been ruled by military leaders.
A salient fact about Egypt is that, despite being outlawed, the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic party, is the best organized and has popular appeal. Most observers agree that in a free and fair election, it would top the polls. Will President Hosni Mubarak, now in his 24th unbroken mandate, allow the Brotherhood to participate in the parliamentary process? Will Bush pressure him to do so?
Contrary to the prevalent view in the West that all of Arab world is an undemocratic desert, there are two oases: Lebanon and Yemen. Their experiences, however, underscore the challenges of sowing the seeds of democracy in the Middle East.
Since its establishment as a republic in 1927, Lebanon has been a democracy. Elections have been held regularly in the country except during World War II and the civil war of 1975-90. But its democracy is "confessional." Its constitution allots parliamentary seats according to the religious make-up of the republic based on a census taken several decades ago. Among Christians and Muslims, seats are allocated to different sects.
Such is the inequity of this system that Christians, now comprising about 35 percent of the population, have half the parliamentary seats. Even though Shia Muslims are twice as numerous as Sunnis, their share of the seats is the same. Despite its stated commitment to Middle East democracy, the Bush administration has largely ignored such imbalances.
The only way that North Yemen, ruled by the centrist General People Congress, and South Yemen, governed by the Socialist Party, could unify in 1990 was by being a multi-party democracy. Whereas its multi-party parliamentary elections in 1993 went unnoticed by the Clinton administration, they inspired many leading Saudi citizens to demand such a poll in their country. King Fahd's dictatorial regime came down hard on these dissenters while Washington looked on passively. Democracy indeed can spread across borders, but it will falter unless bolstered by external support.
Early this year, the Bush White House applauded loudly when the kingdom held its first municipal elections in four decades. Yet women were barred from voting, and so distrustful were men of the promised poll that only a quarter of them registered. Of these, only a half bothered to vote. A local wit described the exercise as "a quarter of a quarter election."
The successful adoption of a federal constitution in Iraq is a notable achievement. Whether it will help maintain the territorial integrity of Iraq as it has existed since 1921 is up in the air. What is certain is that Iraq's break-up will destabilize the whole region - creating turmoil in which debating the pros and cons of democracy in the Middle East will be a futile exercise.
Dilip Hiro is the author of Secrets and Lies: Operation "Iraqi Freedom" and After (Nation Books), and most recently The Iranian Labyrinth: Journeys Through Theocratic Iran and its Furies [Nation Books].
This article appeared in YaleGlobal Online, (http://yaleglobal.yale.edu) a publication of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, and is reprinted by permission. Copyright © 2005 Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.