Progress on the Iraqi Constitution - Square Zero

The constitution has passed. What exactly has been demonstrated? The Kurds want out and if you give them a constitution that confirms what Peter Galbraith says has already happened, namely that they're out, they will be happy. We've always known that.

The Kurds insisted on a provision that prevented an arab coalition against their interests before the constitution writing process even began. The only reason why the Shiites wanted strong central government was to exercise control over Kurdish resources. Without Kurdish resources, strong central government means simply sharing the remainder, the arab patrimony, with the Sunnis. With the Kurds having set the precedent, the Shiites now see regionalism as the facade behind which to grab the maximum possible portion of what the Kurds didn't take.

So naturally, the Kurds and Shiites support the new constitution. Naturally, the Sunni arabs reject it. The vote seems to have been massively along sectarian lines, possibly at the 90% level or more. It certainly appears that the last-minute effort to obtain support from Sunni leaders was wasted, except from the standpoint of the those who got well paid for participating in the charade.

The details of intra-faction politics have not been resolved, since the constitution is generally vague and platitudinous. Whether the Shiites will govern themselves with secular or theocratic rule is unclear, although it's ominous that the Iranians are so happy.

For the Sunnis, this is now a full-fledged farce. Participate in the parliamentary elections, we say. They know they're being given a knife and told to join a gunfight. They know that the more the Shiites become accustomed to operating the levers of power, the bleaker their prospects become. Time is not on their side.

As a practical matter, political compromise only occurs when both sides want something from the other. The political calculus put in place by this constitution leaves the Sunnis with nothing to bargain with, hence no realistic motivation to give peace a chance. These are not fools. The insurgency is an assertion of Sunni vital interests and it isn't going to slow down to let the current version of democracy work.