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The new Iraqi constitution, which will go before
voters on Oct. 15, grants the Kurds vast lawmaking
powers, control over their 60,000-man militia, and
authority over new discoveries of oil and gas. The
Kurds even secured a deadline of Dec. 31, 2007, for
bringing back tens of thousands of Kurds expelled by
the armies of Saddam Hussein in the 1980's.
The constitution limits the exclusive powers of the
central government in Baghdad to a few important
areas like control over currency, foreign policy and
defense. Policy making in areas like health care and
the environment would be "shared" between the Kurds
and Baghdad, but the Kurds would have the right to
change most federal laws if they conflicted with
local legislation. That includes federal taxes.
The new constitution would ratify all laws passed by
the Kurdish regional government since 1992.
In effect, the new Iraqi constitution formally
ratifies the quasi-independent status the Kurdish
region has held since 1991, when the murderous
postwar rampages of Mr. Hussein prompted the United
States to set up a security umbrella that allowed
the Kurds to flourish outside the control of the
central government in Baghdad.
In the new constitution, the Kurds did not achieve
significantly new powers, but they did not give any
up, either.
The one significant concession made by the Kurds in
the constitutional talks was the deletion of
language allowing them the right to secede, under
certain circumstances, from the Iraqi state. Kurdish
leaders say they regarded the secession clause as
mostly symbolic. They leave little doubt that they
regard the new constitution as but a way station on
a journey to eventual independence.
"In the last decade, major changes took place in the
world that gave many people their freedom," Mr.
Barzani said. "I would not be surprised to see such
changes in our region."
But he chose his words carefully, so as not to
offend his friends, like the Americans, or his
adversaries, like the Turks and the Iranians, who
have significant Kurdish minorities in their
countries that they fear might make similar demands.
"The constitution should not just be ink on paper,"
Mr. Barzani said. "Until such time, we will adhere
to it."
It was no small irony that the negotiations over the
constitution, which is intended to hold this
fractious country together, took place inside the
Baghdad compound of Mr. Barzani, who has spent much
of his adult life trying to keep the rest of Iraq at
bay. Indeed, some of the most crucial talks over the
constitution unfolded beneath a portrait of Mustafa
Barzani, Massoud's father, a guerrilla leader who
founded the Kurdish Democratic Party in 1946.
For most Iraqi leaders, Kurdish autonomy was so
firmly entrenched, and its existence so morally
compelling, that it could not be seriously disputed.
In the 1980's, Mr. Hussein and his forces are
believed to have killed hundreds of Kurds, many with
poison gas.
But some Iraqis do worry that the precedent set by
Kurdish autonomy could ultimately spell the end of
Iraq - first by Kurdish secession, and later by
similar designs by others, like Iraq's majority
Shiites, who secured the right to set up an
autonomous region of their own. The critics also
worry that the new constitution, by declaring that
control over resources like water must be shared,
may also have sown the seeds for future conflicts.
"The Kurds act as if they are representatives of a
state and we in Iraq are another state," said Wael
Abdul Latif, a Shiite member of the Iraqi
constitutional committee. "Under this constitution,
Kurdish independence is just a matter of time."
At a news conference this week, Zalmay Khalilzad,
the American ambassador here, suggested that
granting the Kurds extensive powers of self-rule -
that is, setting up a federal system - was the only
realistic option. The Kurds, he said, would not have
tolerated anything less.
"The Kurds say they will not come back unless Iraq
is federal," Mr. Khalilzad said, using the word for
strong regional autonomy.
That may be true for now, but it is evident that the
Kurds have longer-term goals. In a nonbinding
referendum held in Iraq's three Kurdish provinces in
January, some 98 percent of those who voted cast
ballots in favor of independence. If the central
government in Baghdad tried to curtail Kurdish
powers, the demands would grow more insistent.
"If the constitution is not implemented and things
don't move swiftly, then people will want their
independence," said Dr. Mahmood Othman, a Kurdish
leader who was a physician to Mustafa Barzani.
Yet for all their clamoring for independence, Dr.
Othman said, the Kurds played an important, secular
role in counterbalancing the demands of the
cleric-dominated Shiite majority, which pushed for a
constitution with a more heavily Islamic character.
The constitution's protections for individual rights
are largely Kurdish achievements, Dr. Othman said.
"The Kurds were fighting for all Iraqis," he said.
He said the Kurds would probably not have achieved
as much had Iraq's Sunni leaders agreed to the
constitution. Now, he said, it is imperative for the
Kurds to try to bring the Sunnis back on board, lest
the constitution that grants the Kurds so much go
down to defeat.
With the talks on the constitution over, the
atmosphere in Mr. Barzani's compound was that of a
visiting sports team that has come a long way to
play a match. With the game won, many of the players
were itching to go home, away from the sweltering
plains of Baghdad and back to the cooler mountains
they call home.
Few were more eager than Mr. Barzani.
"If they would let me," Mr. Barzani said, laughing,
"I would leave right now."
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