SUCKED INTO THE DEMOCRATIC VORTEX:

Arab countries look to play a role countering Iranian influence in Iraq (Roula Khalaf, October 15 2005, Financial Times)

Arab governments are struggling to counter Iranian influence in Iraq by carving out a role for themselves as mediators in the conflict.

With blessing from the US, the Arab League is proposing to hold an Iraqi conference of national reconciliation soon after the constitutional referendum. [...]

Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq's foreign minister, said the Arabs were partly to blame for the growing Iranian influence.

"I told the Arabs [at a recent meeting] that the reason for Iran's influence in Iraq is that you are absent," said Mr Zebari. "I said the indifference, the wait-and-see attitude, helps other countries fill the vacuum."

On some levels, the Sunni Arab regimes are still struggling to come to terms with the shifting balance of power in the region. The demise of the Sunni-dominated Saddam Hussein regime paved the way for the rise of Shia power in Iraq, one of the Middle East's most important countries, and for closer ties between Iraq and Iran.

Moreover, the region's authoritarian regimes were ill-equipped to give Iraqis advice about their emerging democracy. And the US, hoping to make Baghdad an example for the region, until recently showed little interest in Arab opinion. [...]

Barham Saleh, the Iraqi deputy prime minister who met Arab League officials in Baghdad this week, said Arabs should have engaged in Iraq a long time ago. "We should have had the support of the Arab world in a more active manner - but as they say, better late than never."

It's textbook: they have an interest in a stable neighbor but to have legitimacy the have to be liberalizing. By stabilizing a democratic Iraq they demonstrate that liberalization can work and increase the pressure on themselves.

MORE:
Consensus and Iraq's constitution (Larry Diamond, October 15, 2005, LA Times)

The Bush administration, and particularly its skillful ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, deserve credit for bringing the Sunnis into the constitutional deliberations earlier this summer, after their electoral boycott had largely shut them out of parliament. Khalilzad tried to facilitate a broad constitutional bargain, and then, when the constitution was finally adopted by parliament without Sunni support in August, he fought until this final moment for wider constitutional consensus.

However, this week's agreement is only a beginning. Most weighty Sunni political forces were left out of the last-minute negotiations. Those Sunni leaders who did sign on have already been targeted for assassination.

If today's referendum is not to further polarize the country along ethnic lines, the spirit of compromise will have to be greater. The constitution will need to be revised quickly to allow more former Baath Party members (which is to say, a good swath of the Sunni elite) to run for and hold office. It must not permit the creation of a single Shiite super-region stretching across the entire southern half of the country, with 80% of the country's oil resources.

And Sunnis will never accept the constitutional provisions that leave current oil and gas fields under the control of the national government but give the regions control of any new finds. Giving regional governments control of all new fields would deprivethe Sunni provinces of their fair share of resources.

Many of the vague elements of the constitution will also need to be specified. All of this must come through more inclusive negotiations that yield a broader consensus, and this will require artful new mediation.

Still, this week's compromise moves toward the genuine power sharing that is Iraq's only hope for stability. If that promise is to be realized, the next round of mediation must involve not just the U.S. but the U.N., and perhaps some role for Iraq's Arab neighbors.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 14, 2005 10:39 PM