http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/01/20/saturday-salon-86/

Thanks for the discussion, folks, some of it frustrating but much of it interesting.

That pivotal moment when the Shiite majority in the IGC both accepted the draft constitution and announced their disregard for it merits further consideration.

1. The Shiite majority could have behaved like good little democrats and played their part in the script written for them by the Bush administration.

Bush would have been very happy and the world would have ben more convinced about the success of Bush’s democratic project in Iraq.

However, the Shiites would have been implicated as Bush’s puppets, thus causing internal divisions and allowing other groups condemn them as traitors to the Iraqi nation.

2. The Shiite majority could have been outright rejectionist, thus making themselves the major US target and denying themselves of the benefits of incumbency in ministries and in charge of an army being funded by the US.

The danger here would have been that the Bush administration might have courted Sunni and secular allies in Iraq.

This would have been a very stupid Shiite strategy.

All true, if your premise was correct. However in the detailed account Bremer gives the Islamist Shiites last minute sticking point was reviving the issue of the Kurds insistence on the 3-Governorates-can-reject-constitution-with-a-two-thirds-vote clause.

Earlier, the Islamist sticking point had been wanting the use of the definite article “the ” instead of the indefinite “a” in the phrase “Islam will be a source of legislation”.

The Kurds, Sunnis and secular Shiites on the council all opposed the use of the definite article. They were adamently united against the notion of Shariah Law. Eventually it was solved by a SUNNI amendment adding the words “No law that contradicts the universally agreed tenets of Islam, the principles of democracy, or the rights cited in Chapter Two of this Law may be enacted during the transitional period.” But the Shiites lost out on the definite article.

3. The strategy the Shiites chose was acceptance of the draft constitution with major reservations.

Shiites took control of government and army funded by the US.

Sunnis were forced to play a role of enemies of the state of Iraq.

The US targeted the Sunni.

The US targeted the Sunni? No, it was the Shiites who were being targeted. It went like this:

All sides on the IGC had finally come to agreement on the draft TAL (including the points above). Also Sistani had approved it. The Council broke for Ashura, a Shiite holy day and millions of pilgrims were in Najaf and Karbala. The signing ceremony was planned for after the holy days were over.

On the first day of Ashura the Sunni Baathist insurgents blew up 112 Shiite pilgrims outside a mosque in Karbala wounding hundreds of others and attacked another Shiite mosque in Baghdad.

When the Council reassembled the Islamists were intransigent – they had agreed to it before but now they would not allow an effective “veto” power to the Constitution. It’s not hard to see the reason for their wobble – if the Kurds could veto the Constitution with a 2/3 vote in three Governorates, so could the Sunnis. And the Islamists had just been given a reminder of who the Sunni Baathists were really targeting – and it wasn’t the occupation.

That’s why the signing ceremony didn’t go ahead.

The Shiites held their ground for several days negotiating in a caucus with the Kurds, but in the end the Kurds won out.

The Islamists settled for issuing their proclamation of reservations and gave notice they would fight another day.

Shiites bought time by allowing the resolve of the US in its Iraq adventure to erode.

Well maybe. But maybe not. The Islamists revisited the issue 12 months later when the new Govt was drafting the final Constituion. They got the phrase “fundamental source of legislation” in relation to Islam but the qualifying indefinite article “a” remains.

The full Article 2 reads:

First: Islam is the official religion of the State and it is a fundamental source of legislation:

A. No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established.

B. No law that contradicts the principles of democracy may be established.

C. No law that contradicts the rights and basic freedoms stipulated in this constitution may be established.

Second: This Constitution guarantees the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people and guarantees the full religious rights of all individuals to freedom of religious belief and practice such as Christians, Yazedis, and Mandi Sabeans.

This strategy is an evolution of the North Vietnamese strategy. But it is much more clever. The North Vietnamese were forced to fight and die to erode US resolve. The Shiites, on the other hand, have allowed their enemies to do the fighting and dying in the task of eroding US resolve. Brilliant!

Well, accepting your vision of scheming, strategising Islamist Shiites far superior to the North Vietnamese, alas for them even if the US leaves tomorrow the Constitution will remain.

It can only be amended (a) AFTER the next term of the electoral cycle (b) on a general referendum and (c)their Grand Strategy can be vetoed by the Kurd and the Sunnis.

The Islamists so far have only be able to muscle up 42 per cent of the vote, the Kurds and Sunnis have 20% each and the remaining 18% are secular Shiites, Independents, Turkomens, Christians, Communists etc. (These are the figures from the last election.)

So it’s more than likely the Islamists would not even be able to carry the vote by a majority.

Short of overthrowing the Constitution by a coup, or another civil war the Islamists are pretty much stuck with it. And if they overthrow by means of violence they would run into a few problems of recognition from other countries and from the UN ..

I humbly suggest Ho would never have placed himself in such an individious position.

That’s right, we didn’t have any of this pointy head rubbish in New South Wales

Indeed. That’s why you gave us John Howard.

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Just sayin…

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