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The only solution left for Iraq: a
five-way split
30.10.2006
By Gareth Stansfield |
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Change is in the air.
The recent pronouncements of General Sir Richard
Dannatt and Margaret Beckett suggest that a more
pessimistic outlook regarding Iraq's future is
enveloping Whitehall.
Even the previously bullish US administration is
beginning to show cracks in its resolve. Once
unvoiced fears — about civil war, insurgent victory,
Iranian takeover through Shi'a militias, even the
Balkanisation of Iraq — are now being spoken aloud
and even listened to, and may result in new
strategies emerging.
But the choices available to policy-planners are few
and far between, and are now governed largely by the
realities in Iraq, rather than by any plan emanating
from the embattled Coalition.
Heading the list of choices available is that of
turning Iraq into a federal state. Indeed, there is
actually no other choice, if the country is to
survive in anything like its current shape.
Iraq's federal future is already enshrined within
its constitution, allowing regions to form, if not
actually prescribing how this should happen. The
Kurdistan region currently exists as an
institutional reality, with its own government and
legislature.
Strong voices are now being heard from some of the
Shi'a political parties, including the Supreme
Council and the Fadilah, each supporting a federal
arrangement, even if they have quite different ideas
about what it should ultimately look like.
Underpinning these trends is the fact that the
ability to project power in Iraq has devolved,
chaotically, to localised forces. The unitary state
is on the verge of failure, if it has not actually
failed already.
The Coalition, though, still seems to be wary of
embracing a federal plan as a means to maintaining
the country's integrity, even though the Iraqi
parliament (dominated by Shi'a and Kurds) passed a
bill earlier this month allowing federal regions to
form (by majority vote in the provinces seeking
merger).
The law, which unsurprisingly failed to win Sunni
support, will be reviewed over the next 18 months in
a bid to bring its opponents round.
So the next year and a half is crucial to designing
a federal model that will be accepted by a majority
of Iraqis. Several prominent observers, particularly
in the US, have suggested a tripartite division of
the country, with maps showing a neat arrangement of
Kurdistan in the north, a Shi'a-dominated south, and
a Sunni central zone.
But, if the intention is to build a stable political
system, then "three regions" is simply not the way
to do it. A three-way split would likely mean that
the political process would be dominated by Kurds
and Shi'as (as it is now) at the expense of the
Sunnis, unless each region were given the power of
veto — which itself would make any progress almost
impossible to achieve.
A tripartite division also would not resolve what is
already the most pressing problem in Iraq: the civil
war raging in Baghdad. By far the largest population
centre in the country, its future dictates Iraq's
future, and where the capital should be located in a
federal structure needs careful consideration.
Commonly, advocates of a tripartite division see
Baghdad as being within the Sunni region. But it is
far from clear on what basis this argument is made.
Indeed, if one views Baghdad's future merely from
the perspective of demographics, then a case could
be made for including it in a Shi'a-dominated
region. Either scenario would likely result in even
more violence.
So what are the alternatives? The basic requirements
for a workable federal arrangement seem to be
reasonably straightforward. Regions need to be able
to embark upon a democratic transition, free from
the concerns and constraints imposed by ethnic or
sectarian competition; their populations need to see
their security improve dramatically; each needs to
receive an equal and fair share of the resources
necessary to support its population; and they need
to be able to participate in a meaningful political
process which produces results for all.
With these requirements in mind, a three-region
solution could create more problems than it
resolves. But a system based upon five regions would
seem to have more chance of succeeding. A
five-region model could see two regions in the
south, one based around Basra and one around the
holy cities. Kurdistan and the Sunni region would
remain, but Baghdad and its environs would form a
fifth, metropolitan, region.
Under such a division, each region would need to
build alliances and make compromises to achieve its
particular objectives: Kurdistan, for instance, the
most monolithic of the new "states", would need to
find agreement with at least two of the other
regions to achieve any particular objective. There
would also be plenty of opportunity for
cross-communal relationships emerging due to the
existence of the metropolitan Baghdad and two Shi'a
regions.
Security would be the responsibility of local
authorities, as is formally recognised already in
Kurdistan, and has emerged in a de facto sense
across much of the rest of the country. With their
destinies in their own hands, there would be less
encouragement for the insurgents in the new regions.
The question of how to manage Iraq's uneven oil
wealth would be crucial to making any federal system
work. But the current constitution does at least
provide a starting point for discussion. It already
envisages that the central government will continue
to be responsible for the operations of established
oil-fields and infrastructure, with regional
governments now taking the responsibility to manage
any new developments. What needs to be agreed is a
mechanism for redistributing revenues equitably
across Iraq.
Tensions between Kurdistan and Baghdad are currently
high due to disagreements over exactly this issue,
but revenue redistribution remains the key to
success for the federal system.
Other places, most notably Canada, have federal
systems that require complex redistributive
mechanisms for oil -derived revenue. Iraq is
admittedly not tranquil Canada, but the precedent at
least exists.
If federalism is not pursued, the Kurds would move
to secede. If local solutions are not sought to
local problems, then the Sunni-Shi'a conflicts on
the ground can only get worse, leading to the
chaotic dismemberment of Iraq.
A carefully considered federal system is the last
and only chance of holding Iraq together in the
absence of a dictator of Saddam's dimensions.
- Gareth Stansfield is Reader in Middle East
Politics at the University of Exeter, and Associate
Fellow at Chatham House.
telegraph co.uk
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