Date: 24 March 2004

Source: KRG

published on the KDP website

• by Khaled Salih

Published in Svenska Dagbladet (a Swedish daily newspaper), 10th March 2004.

The Iraqi Governing Council was due to sign the country’s new transitional law after several months of negotiations. Disagreements on several issues alongside the terror attacks in Karbala and Baghdad forced the Council to postpone the ceremony several times. Many felt relieved once the Council finally agreed on an official ceremony to be held on the 5th of March.

Prior to the intended inaugural ceremony however, the event was once again cancelled, as five Shiite members of the Council presented reservations with regard to two main issues. The first concerned the fact that the Kurds were given a right to repudiate a permanent constitution in the general elections. The other issue related to the Shiite Muslim’s desire for five presidents of which three would be Shiites, one Sunni and one Kurd. These members referred to Ayatollah Sistani (not a member of the Governing Council and pretends to have no official political ambitions) who disliked these particular points.

After several days of diplomatic efforts, the disagreement was finally resolved and the document was signed by all members of the Council without adjustments.

The negotiations leading up to the new Iraqi transitional law are historically unique for the country, as well as for the entire Middle East. After several sessions of arm wrestling and extensive bargaining they managed to agree on a compromise that outlines the political direction of the future Iraq. Together with the downfall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in April last year died the old state formation, whose foundations were laid by Great Britain during the 1920s. More than an 80-year old tradition of violence imposed from Baghdad was broken by the US war to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

The country is now liberated from a brutal political system that for decades reduced people to powerless subjects through arbitrary arrests, executions, mass murders, genocide and two wars.

But the freedom is also accompanied by occupation, political murders on leaders and ruthless murders on innocent civilians. It seems as if Iraq has fallen into pieces in an irrevocable way. The doom day prophets tend only to see the negative and claim that a civil war can not be avoided. The optimists consider it an extraordinary victory that the central power’s spiral of violence is finally broken and that exile politicians can return home and negotiate a new power structure and a permanent constitution, mirroring the demographic composition of the country.

It is worth to be emphasised again that despite terrorist attacks and assassinations of political leaders (Shiites as well as Kurds), political forces in Iraq have successfully refrained from unfounded accusations and effectively prevented brutal acts of revenge. Instead of generating further fear and hopelessness, representatives of different parties and groups have conducted meaningful, yet extraordinarily difficult, negotiations on how Iraq’s transitional law should be formed, what mechanisms established in dealing with complicated questions and how the division of power should look like.

As in most traumatized societies, it has not been an easy task for the negotiators to find simple and immediate solutions. Each community in Iraq has a different experience of the past, different interests and varying degrees of security needs. Furthermore, the negotiators must take into consideration the US plans for Iraq and the entire region, the upcoming American president elections, the unwillingness of a large part of Europe to play a constructive role in the reconstruction of Iraq and the neighbouring countries’ desire (and to some extent active role) to undermine the ongoing process.

Essentially, the Shiite Muslims in the South fear losing their power which they gained after the fall of Saddam. Indeed, the Shiite Muslims constitute a majority of the country’s population, but have been subordinated by the Sunni Muslims minority for a long time.

Those Sunnis who oppose change, are now exploiting a scenario in which Shiite Muslim a dominance would lead to acts of revenge and tyranny of the majority. The Sunni Muslims can at best obtain a political position that is in proportion to their size, but they can not regain the position they had during Saddam. The Kurds, also a minority in the country, express fear of losing the freedoms they have enjoyed for more than twelve years and are afraid of the return of the Iraqi army and secret intelligence.

Even before the war the oppositional groups agreed on a post-Saddam Iraq as democratic, parliamentary, and a federal state guaranteeing all groups and individuals their legal rights. The laws and regulation that are signed now intend to prevent the repetition of earlier mistakes and establish a new framework for how the country be governed during a transitional period. The optimist asserts that Iraq is now saved from collapse. From here on, all groups in Iraq must exercise a new form of politics, through negotiations and compromise, but most importantly, be ruled by a genuine desire to live together in this artificial state but based on new conditions.

On the other hand it is not difficult to reject the historical argument of the pessimist who may claim that states come and states go. In the beginning of the 1900s there were only 25 states in the world, most of them large empires. A hundred years later there are approximately 200 states, an increase of 175 new states during one hundred year. What makes the survival of a re-structured Iraq different?

A pre-condition for the survival of the Iraqi state is the creation of a federal state based on the voluntary association between all peoples living in the country. In addition, Iraq’s new institutions must be shaped with a high degree of flexibility, making possible for their adaptation to constantly changing social, political and financial processes.

However, many important and conclusive issues have not been solved in this transitional law. The period until the end of 2005 will be of decisive importance for the future of the country. If the neighbouring states are held outside, if the US efforts in Iraq are perceived more successful than before, if the role of the UN increases in a constructive way and if the experiences of the European countries’ in creating and reshaping states are extended to Iraq, there will be hope for a peaceful solution even in Iraq. The different groups of the country have the ultimate responsibility not to suspect each other, but rather continue the path of negotiation, compromise and reconciliation.

The latest political events can be regarded as classical brinkmanship where negotiators from different groups are positioning themselves and work hard to see if their counterparts will give way at the last moment. This time nobody yielded. During this transitional period ahead, there will be several opportunities to mark political stands and demonstrate strength. Even temporary collapses in the negotiations may occur, but this should to be seen as a new political feature in a country earlier dominated by political violence, war, sanctions and collapse.

Unofficial translation by KRG Nordic

Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Nordic Representation P.O BOX 7127 SE-170 07 SOLNA

Phone: +46 8 442 05 05 Fax: +46 8 442 09 05 E-mail: krg.nordic@telia.com Web: www.krg.org

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