From Bloomberg News:
Iraq’s Shiite political leaders prepared to send a draft constitution to the parliament later today while trying to persuade minority Sunnis to back the charter.
Kurdish and Shiite Muslim leaders have agreed on the broad points and “the difficulty now is for all the other groups, including the Sunnis, to agree on the text, too,’’ Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s spokesman, Leith Kubba, said in a telephone interview from the capital, Baghdad.
Iraq’s parliament voted to extend the original Aug. 15 deadline by a week to give negotiators more time to debate issues including the role of Islam in the legislature, self-determination and control over oil reserves and production. Debate on the document officially began in May.
The constitution is intended to pave the way for an election by Dec. 31 and be the foundation for a new government that the U.S. is counting on to take a greater role in battling a Sunni-led insurgency and easing pressure on the U.S. military.
While the Kurds and Shiites hold the two-thirds majority required in the National Assembly to approve the constitution on their own, they have been reaching out to members of the Sunni Muslim minority to bring them into the political process.
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is helping mediate the talks, assisting at the request of the parties, according to the White House. President George W. Bush is monitoring developments “very closely,’’ spokesman Trent Duffy told reporters today on Air Force One while flying into Salt Lake City.
Iraq is defined as a “federal’’ republic in the draft, according to a copy seen by Reuters. Sunnis have expressed concerns about self-ruling Kurdish and Shiite regions, rich in oil reserves, being carved from Iraq.
Over the weekend, Big Pharoah, Austin Bay, and others raised concerns that the State Department, in an effort to get a deal done, had given ground to Islamists insisting increased Sharia influence to be codified—a development that, if true, would seriously undermine support for the war from those of us on the right who are more interested in getting it right than in getting it done quickly in order to quiet war critics.
Meanwhile, ITM reports that “National Assembly member Bahaa Al-Aaraji just told Al-Iraqia TV that an agreement has finally been reached among the leaders of political bodies on the final draft of the constitution and that disputes over issues like federalism, distribution of resources and the role of Islam have been solved”—though FOXNews, like Bloomberg, is still reporting that the Sunnis are holding out.
I guess we’ll know soon enough if American blood was indeed spilled spreading freedom; because nothing short of a document that provides protection for minorities and basic human rights for all—which would necessarily preclude Sharia law from being institutionalized by the State—is acceptable, both to those who’ve supported the war, and, more importantly, to the majority of Iraqis actually fighting that war.
(h/t Glenn)
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update: FOXNew is reporting that the Sunnis leadership will oppose the draft constitution come October; and that an uptick in the insurgency—or possibly even all-out civil war—is in the offing.
The sticking point seems to be that federalism would rob the Sunnis of oil wealth by making certain oil-rich regions economically autonomous. And from the perspective of the US, any provisions that allows clerics and Sharia law to overrule civil law, denotes a remarkable failure on the part of our State Department—one that would make the entire Iraqi operation a fool’s errand.
Of course, we’ll have to see the wording once finalized before we declare success or failure. The committee has given itself 3 more days to reach consensus on certain issues.
Bottom line: if the US is to be accused of imperialism anyway, we should go ahead and make certain basic provisions of the Iraqi constitution absolutely mandatory: namely, basic civil rights for all (protected by the rule of civil law), equal rights for women (protected against religious “law”), and protection for minorities—even if that means dissolving the provisional authority and beginning again from scratch. Either that, or we allow the breakup of Iraq into 3 autonous countries—and support those that adhere to democratic principles (and then deal with the concerns of the Turks down the road).
Of course, all this could just be the Dryer’s Grand Light Fudge Tracks ice cream talking. So I’ll be gathering other blogosphere reaction and posting it here. For balance.
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update 2: Others commenting
We lost. It’s over. Our only hope is to turn the nation over to the Baathists or the Islamists.
Yea!! The first of the Libs to surrender!!
Oh, wiat, he/it is suggesting that WE surrender.
No way, Jose.
It’s truly a sign of the times that surrendering to fascism or Islamo-fascism could be considered either “progressive” or “liberal.”
Jeff, this isn’t totally unexpected, is it? While this development is certainly aggravating and more than a little dispiriting, I think it’s going to take more than a couple of years to instill a new belief that democracy and freedom are consistent with Muslim beliefs and with the greater good of all.
To extend Chuck Hagel’s moronic assertion about Iraq as another Vietnam: it’s taken the Vietnamese a generation to move past the bloody communist pogroms that erupted after we deserted them, but it’s a fledgling democracy today based at least partly on the influence we had while there.
Maybe Iraq needs to hit a lower low before the Iraqis realize what we were offering…?
TW ‘later’, as in: Old habits die hard; maybe two years is too soon to achieve a clean sweep of those things that hold the Iraqis back from greatness.
C’mon, PL, say it. “Quagmire!” You know you want to … you do … come on … saaaaay it.
One of my old english professors used to say that she’d rather we hand in a good paper late, than a pile of BS on time. If it takes several years for the Iraqi’s to agree to include civil and human rights in their constitution, then I think it is several years well spent.
If you’re going to do a thing you might as well do it right.
I’m still unconvinced that a Sunni vs. Shiite/Kurd civil war would be such a bad thing (except, of course, for the civilians caught in the middle.) What better way to end the “insurgency” than for the other 80% of Iraqis that are currently the target of the insurgency to kill off the instigators once and for all.
Ok, a little harsh, but so is blowing up dozens of civilians at a time.
Oh, and I forgot—Chuck Hagel is a dick.
I don’t like these developments at all, however there is a last hope here that could break our way—the Iraqi people get to vote on this, and from what I have been reading, are not quite as “zealous” as their leaders in demanding Sharia. If the voters turn this down and cite the influence of Islam as a major reason why, this could be VERY GOOD for those of us looking marginalize Islam in the role of government in the Middle East.
I’ll literally be on pins and needles with this one.
Apparently the guys over at Iraq the Model, nobody’s idea of islamofascists, think this is a pretty workable constitution. One article states that no law shall be passed that is inconsistent with the principles of Islam; another states that no law shall be passed that is inconsistent with the principles of democracy. Doesn’t really sound like the Return of the Taliban.
Let’s not be overly hasty to declare this a defeat, people. That’s what dicks like Progressive Liberal are for.
Correct. Wanna agree on some KPI’s? I mean we have had mission drift from the start.
The only way for the US to ‘win’ this thing now is to fucking agree on what would constitute winning – then win and run. Only way.
TW – moral – as in the moral of the story is more boots on the ground if you are going to invade a country.
I’ll say it:
Quagmire.