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NEWS & LETTERS, September-October 2005Our Life and Times by Kevin A. BarryIraq's reactionary draft constitutionIn October, Iraqis will vote on a draft constitution that, in the words of THE ECONOMIST, fulfills "the wish-list of international investors." It would allow multinationals to repatriate their profits, would establish a flat tax system, and would privatize social services such as education and healthcare. Most importantly to the multinationals, it would allow oil and other natural resources to be exploited by international capital. The social features of the draft constitution are even more reactionary, the product of a rotten compromise between Shiite Arab Islamist parties under the influence of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and secular Kurdish parties. Pressured by the U.S. to come up with a draft without further delay, a deal mediated by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalizad includes retrogressive measures on religion and law, and especially on women’s rights. This came as a bitter pill to those who assumed the U.S. would support secular democracy. While the draft constitution would not install an Iranian-style "rule of the clerics," Islam would become "a principal source of legislation," with clerics empowered to veto legislation they judged to be in conflict with Islam. Clerics would also have vast power over gender and family law. These provisions have led to protests by Iraqi women’s groups and secular parties, but their voices have been brushed aside by the larger political forces. More shockingly, their voices have been ignored, not only by the mainstream liberal media, but also by much leftist and progressive media in the U.S. and internationally. (A notable exception is the writings of gay journalist Doug Ireland’s articles for ZNet.) The Kurdish parties accepted this rotten compromise because the draft would also grant Iraqi Kurdistan near-total autonomy. Autonomy would also be given to predominantly Shiite Arab southern Iraq, where clerics already exercise much de facto power. These two regions include most of Iraq’s oil deposits. It is this in particular that has enraged even those Sunni Arab parties that had participated in the constitutional negotiations. For the Sunni Arabs, the base of the former Ba'athist regime but only about 20% of the population, are concentrated in central Iraq. On Sept. 14, in a stark reminder of the continuing strength of the Sunni Arab-backed armed resistance, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi’s Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia claimed responsibility for a series of suicide bombings that killed over 150 people in a single day in Baghdad. In one attack, which killed over 100 people, a minivan exploded after its driver lured Shiite day laborers to approach by offering them work. Timed to coincide with the opening of the UN General Assembly, the death toll was the largest for a single day in Baghdad since the U.S. invasion of 2003. In this and other attacks--and in inflammatory statements by Zarqawi calling for "full-scale war without mercy" on Iraqi Shiites--the armed resistance has tried to touch off an ethno-religious war, hoping to provoke the Shiite Arab majority to launch wholesale attacks on Sunni Arab civilians. So far, this has not transpired, but it remains a possibility, one that could result in the Lebanonization of Iraq. |
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