And so now, fully nine days after Condoleezza Rice “called” the Oct. 15th Iraqi referendum, the Independent Iraqi Electoral Commission has come out with its final tally.
Surprise, surprise! The Constitution has been adopted. The No voters did manage to get more than 2/3 of the vote in two provinces. But they failed to meet that required benchmark in any other province, including in Ninevah, though they got 55.08% of the tallied votes there. (Check the province-by-province results here.)
The US-dictated “TAL” document that last year laid out a complex system of procedures for a supposed “handover” of power in Iraq fto a legitimate Iraqi administration decreed that a two-thirds No vote in three or more provinces would be required to send the Constitution-drafters back to their drawing boards.
How much of a difference– in Iraq— does the “passage” of the “constitution” actually make. Back on October 2 I wrote:
- Let’s be clear, whether this draft constitution is accepted or rejected on October 15, the following will happen:
1.There will be an election for a new National Assembly on December 15. (The only question is over whether this will be a “post-constitutional” assembly, or yet another “transitional” assembly.)
2. One or more of Iraq’s three major population groups will be majorly pissed off, and inter-group tensions– having been exacerbated by the very framing and holding of the referendum itself–can be guaranteed to continue.
3. There will remain many fundamental details of the constitution to be decided, and
4. The Kurds will continue their march toward secession/ independence, whether with more or less speed.
All of the above still stands.
But a lot of what goes on in Iraq these days (and for several years past, too) isn’t primarily “about” Iraq, at all. The poor benighted Iraqis are just the bit players in a much broader, more arrogant drama being played out on the world stage by small groups of people in and around Washington DC. Take this piece of “instant commentary”, by “lawyer and novelist” Alan Topol, that appeared recently in the pages of the staunchly rightwing Washington Times:
- The recent Iraqi vote on the constitutional referendum represents a huge victory for the beleaguered Bush administration. Most important, it may pave the way for bringing home U.S. troops from Iraq next year. It is now possible that there may be a light at the end of the tunnel.
With congressional elections taking place in November 2006, the administration would like nothing better than to begin a significant troop withdrawal before that date. The Oct. 15 vote, which leaves the Iraqi constitution intact and approved, assists in that process because it permits the administration to argue that Iraq now has a viable government…
Did I say “instant” commentary? Well it was better than instant– it was “before the fact”! Just like Condi Rice’s and the President’s crowings about the referendum results, last week…
(Check some Iraqi and international reaction to today’s announcement, here.)
And so, while Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald gets closer and closer to the center of power in DC, the Bushies remain desperate to prove that their their whole imperial adventure in Iraq has had some good results, however short-lived they might prove to be…
Allan Topol is a lawyer and the author of several novels,
How much good would it do Iraq if the constitutional process allowed the Sunni’s complete veto over everything? Would South Africa be a better place if the Afrikaaners had veto over the ANC?
On balance, the Shia suffered the most over the years, yet there leaders show some impressive reserve. One cannot say as much for the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, some of whom excell at hate-baiting.
The early forecasts on the vote outcome did not entail some vast scheme of vote tampering. The only “rig” to the ballot was that communal blocks of Shia and Kurds, with high turnout, were more or less certain to dominate a 20% minority with less dedicated turnout, even with the minority veto provisions. But one can also argue that it would be unfair or undemocratic to let a 33% “no” vote defeat a constitution, no matter how few or many districts were involved. If 33% minorities could vote down constitutions, not many would survive anywhere.
Topol’s Iraq analysis is NOT based only on a calculus of US elections. It is reasonably nuanced. He describes the vote on the constitution as a victory which may foster steps toward a stable federated government. However, he also suggests that violence will continue and that Iraq’s three blocks will unite to call for US withdrawal. If this can occur without chaos, it may achieve a troop reduction that serves the GOP quite nicely around 2006 election time in the USA. But he also warns that the process may not be smooth or rational.
Topol’s view is quite different from that espoused by F. Kagan and others at AEI, who insist there needs a US troop buildup and savage S&D campaign against the Sunni insurgents.
Between Topol’s “let’s now declare victory and leave” posture and that of Kagan, which should one prefer? From Iraq’s standpoint, the Topol outcome might be the least onerous or most optimistic. Wouldn’t it be nice, almost Quakerish, to think that the Sunnis would reconcile themselves to minority status and take up the principled cause of human rights protection, as opposed to cheering Saddam or Zarkawi and hoping for a return to the old days.
There might be good reasons not to want to live under a Shia theocracy, but it seems that the alternatives preferred by many of the Sunni (a neo-Bath or quasi Wahabi state) would be no more humane and almost certainly discriminatory against most Iraqis. But this is what the Iraqis themselves will have to decide.
Note: HC’s preferred “declare defeat, admit guilt, and leave” will not help any GOP candidates win re-election and would assure any Dem challengers ill-fame. Yet even Topol more or less concedes that most Iraqis will view the US as the bad guy.
Actually, I think the Iraqi constitutional exercise will have almost no effect in the US — unless the Administration does make it the occasion of troop withdrawals which I don’t see happening. They got away with their imperial war in the first place because most in the US don’t give a damn about Iraqis or have the faintest notion what we have done to them. And we don’t care about their constitution or their civil war either.
More and more though, we want US troops out of harm’s way.
Testing the comments here