Looking Ahead
In drafting a constitution, Iraqis try to overcome (or sidestep) issues that could pull the country apart
The last time a constitution was supposed to be completed in Iraq, reporters waited for eight hours inside a conference hall, where fountain pens had been carefully laid out on an antique desk once used by King Faisal I, Iraq's first monarch. Specially invited children dressed in tribal garb lounged in front of a map of the nation emblazoned with the slogan "We all participate in the new Iraq." In the end, though, everyone gave up and went home, while leaders of the various ethnic groups continued to argue behind closed doors over details of what was to become the interim constitution, or the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL).
Now, 17 months later, a different group of leaders is writing Iraq's permanent Constitution, and everyone is hoping against hope that history does not repeat itself. "A lot of the same debates are happening all over again," says one official involved in both political processes. "A lot of it sounds very familiar. But at least they're doing it."
The completed document is due on August 15, and many of the same issues are back on the table: the division of power between the federal government and the provinces; the role of Islam in law; women's rights, and what to do about Kirkuk, the city claimed by Kurds that sits on a sea of oil.
Hard bargaining. The starting points did not look promising. The Kurds touted a version of the Constitution giving their region the right to conduct its own foreign policy and cut its own oil deals. The Shiite Muslims circulated a draft that forbids any law contrary to Islamic law. The Sunni Muslims said forget democracy; a dictator would be better for the country. But Iraqi-style negotiation is to start off with extreme demands, then backpedal.
The question is whether the resulting document will be relevant, or if it's the process that counts. Heather Coyne heads a team in Baghdad from the U.S. Institute of Peace, which has been working on building a dialogue between citizens and the drafters. "There is the fear that the political elites will get an agreement they can live with, but constituents won't think it reflects what [they] believe in," she says. Perhaps no one will know until it's put to the test. "When the TAL was passed, a lot of people thought it wasn't worth the paper it was written on," says an official involved in the TAL process. "But now the Iraqis are reading it word for word--whether the referendum requires [approval of] two thirds of voters or two thirds of registered voters, that kind of thing."
But in the end, because of the short time frame, many issues will have to remain unresolved. Officials familiar with the negotiations say there could be agreement on a process to resolve the status of Kirkuk, for example, rather than laying out specifics of the city's fate. New York University Prof. Noah Feldman, who was involved in drafting the TAL, raises the point that the U.S. Constitution survived and was ratified by being vague on controversial subjects such as slavery--but he adds that it ultimately led to civil war. "Similarly, in Iraq, putting off the question of how much independence Kurdistan will have might buy them time," he says, "but 20, 30 years down the line, it could lead to conflict, or even to secession."
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