Unmaking Iraq

Amman/Brussels  |   26 Sep 2005

Unless the flaws of its draft constitution can be corrected in the next few weeks before the Iraqi people vote on it, Iraq is likely to slide toward full-scale civil war and the break-up of the country.

Unmaking Iraq: A Constitutional Process Gone Awry,* the latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, examines the growing divisions between the country's three principal communities - Shiites, Kurds and Sunni Arabs - and describes how a rushed constitutional process has deepened the rifts. Only a strong U.S.-led initiative to assuage Sunni Arab concerns can now stop Iraq's violent break-up.

"The constitution is likely to fuel rather than dampen insurgency", says Robert Malley, Director of Crisis Group's Middle East and North Africa Program. "A compact based on compromise and broad consent could have been a first step in a healing process. Instead, it is proving yet another step in a process of depressing decline".

On 15 October, Iraqis will be asked, in a referendum, to embrace a weak document that lacks consensus and is dangerously vague or ambiguous on key issues. It is likely to pass, despite Sunni Arab opposition: the Kurdish parties and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani have proven ability to bring out their followers, and the Sunni Arabs are unlikely to clear the threshold of two thirds in three provinces to defeat it. Passage may be the worst outcome, leaving Iraq divided along ethnic and sectarian lines, a situation the insurgents would exploit.

The only hope left is for the U.S. to make a last-ditch effort to broker a true compromise that addresses core Sunni Arab concerns without crossing Shiite or Kurdish red lines. This requires the U.S. to sponsor negotiations to reach an agreement prior to 15 October that the constitution will subsequently be amended or appropriate legislation passed ensuring at a minimum that:

• no more than four governorates can become a region through fusion, to assuage Sunni Arab fears of a Shiite super region in the South; and
• Iraqis will not be excluded from public office or managerial positions on the basis of mere membership in the Baath party.

If the U.S. fails to play this role, the constitution is adopted on 15 October and a government is elected by 15 December without a strong political agreement underpinning its legitimacy, descent into civil war and disintegration, with mass expulsions in areas of mixed population, could well become a reality.

"Only Washington may have the leverage necessary to bring the sides around the table to forge an agreement that holds Iraq together", says Joost Hiltermann, Crisis Group's Middle East Project Director. "There's no guarantee of success, of course, but given the stakes, the U.S. cannot afford not to try".