October 17, 2005
ASK THE WRONG QUESTION...
Iraq's Oslo moment (Mark LeVine, Asia Times, 10/18/05)
With the approval of the revised constitution on Saturday by a strong majority of its citizens [1], Iraq would seem to be poised to enter a new and peaceful phase of the post-Saddam Hussein era.But viewed from the perspective of the Middle East's recent history, particularly the failed negotiating strategies behind the collapse of the Oslo peace process, Saturday's referendum will likely neither end the insurgency nor bring the country closer to significant democratic development.
The original draft of the constitution did set important benchmarks for democracy and personal freedom for Iraqis. It even concludes with a statement on environmental protection that Americans should envy.
But these advances are overshadowed by what the constitution left out. Specifically, there are no references to three issues that are of primary concern to most Arab, and especially Sunni Iraqis: a prohibition on the long-term presence of foreign - read American - troops in the country; a firm statement emphasizing Iraqi control of production and distribution of the country's oil resources; and a commitment to rebuilding the social infrastructure that was devastated by the invasion and subsequent wholesale privatization of the country's economy under US auspices.
Two questions that would seem dispositive: 1) Why is the Oslo process the proper prism through which to view the Iraqi exercise in constitutionalism and popular sovereignty, and 2) Aren't the answers to LeVine's "issues" pretty much a given in a sovereign Iraq, so self-evident that they don't especially need to be enshrined in the country's constitution?
Posted by kevin_whited at October 17, 2005 2:16 PMAre Germany and Korea "sovereign" states?
May we get a grip on reality here? None of these so-called "sovereign" states are capable of carrying on militarily without our stiffening.
We have been most careful to dispose of things that way, and we should have been very foolish not to have done so. To have set up a client state to be able to wage war without our license would have been an abdication of responsibility on the order of placing a loaded gun in the hands of a small child.
Posted by: Lou Gots at October 17, 2005 2:34 PMWest Germany apparently was sovereign enough to merge with East Germany. :)
I'm not sure how that corresponds with LeVine's insistence that self-evident political reality be enshrined in the Iraqi constitution though. The U.S. isn't going to be an occupying force in Iraq forever. Does that really need to be written alongside the provisions that LeVine praises?
Posted by: kevin whited at October 17, 2005 2:42 PMIt actually is the proper prism, he just has it typically backwards. The premise of Oslo was that the Israelis, after conceding the inevitability of a Palestinian state, should sit and bargain with the Palestinians about its every detail. Ariel Sharon and George Bush instead took Natan Sharansky's advice, just imposed the state on them, and said we'll see you when you have a democratic leadership.
The same folks who lament the passing of Oslo think the Shi'a, Kurds, and US should sit at the table with the Sunni until they agree to every jot and tittle of the constitution. They're like the enablers of alcoholics.
Posted by: oj at October 17, 2005 3:03 PMHis three criteria are (1) an immediate end to the alliance with the US, (2) socialism (govt ownership) in the oil industry from derrick to gas pump, and (3) socialism in every other industry. Clearly, a constitution which leaves significant law-making capacity to elected officials could not take such stands. Was he an advisor on the 500-page European Union constitution?
Posted by: pj at October 17, 2005 4:13 PMPJ: No he is a professor of middle eastern studies and further evidence that the academy needs to be remodeled with a D-9
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at October 17, 2005 9:12 PM