Iraqi constitutional big yawn

So here’s why right now, as opposed to a few months ago, I’m not getting myself all worked up over Iraq’s constitutional discussions:
I don’t think that at this late date they can make even the slightest bit of difference.
Islam as “a” source of legislation, “the” source, “one of the primary sources”?
Yawn.
Borders of the Kurdish region?
Yawn.
Or maybe rather than finding these discussions boring, I should more accurately say that I think that at this point they’re almost totally irrelevant to the long-term future of the country.
Right now, they’re only being pursued with the current “energy” because of the imminent approach of the Aug. 15 deadline mandated in Paul Bremer’s highly mechanistic and undemocratic TAL document.
Now it’s true that I wrote just over two weeks ago that it looked as though the Bushies were now,

    using the adoption of this hastily scrawled [constitutional] text as their pretext for — well, if not a total exit (though that would indeed be nice, wouldn’t it?)– but at least, a significant drawdown in the US troop levels….

So since I am definitely in favor of a rapid and total withdrawal, perhaps I should be cheering for a rapid conclusion of the constitutional discussions?
But no, I’m not. I think the Bushies will go ahead and do whatever they feel they need to do, deployment-wise or withdrawal-wise, regardless of whatever piece of paper a bunch of “Eye-racki” pols in Baghdad come up with at this point. It is ways too late now for any serious constitutional discussions to be held between now and Aug. 15.
(How long did it take the US Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia to complete its task?)
So by far the best quote I’ve seen so far on the current Iraqi constitutional discussions is this one, from Kurdish constitutional committee member Mahmoud Othman:

    The Americans want to make a quick constitution… They have a lot of experience in fast food, but they can’t make a fast constitution.’ (Reuters, Baghdad, July 31)

If I thought more about it might I conclude, as I was edging toward in that July 15 JWN post, that “locking” a constitution favorable to the Bushites’ interests in place might be a real danger to world peace? Somewhat analogous to Israel’s Likudniks having locked the extremely one-sided “May 17” agreement in place with the government of Lebanon back in 1983, but considerably more momentous?
Nah. In the end the May 17 agreement really didn’t constrain the Lebanese political system from doing anything much at all. It muddied the political-diplomatic waters inside Lebanon for a little while… But meanwhile, it also clarified a lot of issues that had previously been quite murky. It was never ratified or implemented, and sank in the water from the deadweight of its own improbabilities less than a year after it was signed.
I think any Iraqi “constitution” that is agreed on now, under the pressure of the US occupation presence, would have a roughly similar fate. That’s why I can’t get very excited about the issue.
Zzzzzzz. Wake me when it’s over.

8 thoughts on “Iraqi constitutional big yawn”

  1. Some commentators (and Iraqi bloggers) still maintain that the developing degree of Sunni/Shiite animosity is not natural and is being exacerbates by outside forces. But it sure doesn

  2. I think you are quite right, Helena, and I found this piece very perceptive. The constitution has lost its credibility, and will certainly be junked as soon as the US is out of the way (or perhaps as soon as this US administration is out of the way).
    It is the way that all of sudden the constitution is finished, to fit in with US-defined deadlines, that has discredited it. There cannot have been much discussion of the details. The only issues that have come out are the big ones, and it is not clear that even they were really resolved. What about all the rest?

  3. John, ‎
    ‎“Some commentators (and Iraqi bloggers) still maintain that the developing degree ‎of Sunni/Shiite animosity is not natural and is being exacerbates by outside forces. ‎But it sure doesn

  6. “Because — unlike in Afghanistan — although we are part of the security solution there, we are also part of the problem.”
    U.S.-led troops in Iraq part of problem-UK’s Straw    ”
    I beg to differ with Mr. Straw. The U.S. is in no way, shape or form part of the security solution in Iraq. And the U.S. is not PART of the problem, the U.S. IS the problem.

  7. “the U.S. is not PART of the problem, the U.S. IS the problem”
    Honestly, Shirin, you are over doing it a bit. Despite all the nasty things the U.S. has done in Iraq, you cannot credibly claim that everything there would be just peaches and cream* if not for the presence of U.S. forces. What about Kirkuk? What about Baghdad for that matter? We both advocate the immediate withdrawal of “coalition” forces from Iraq, but let’s not kid ourselves. Not everybody is going to live happily ever after once we’re gone.
    *idiomatic expression for “all good”

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