Iraq: federalism and/or bust?
The Iraqi Parliament has passed a law allowing for the establishment of federal regions in Iraq.
This isn’t the sort of thing that makes good sound bites or titillating headlines. Its real effect on the course of history in Iraq remains to be seen, but speculation is rife. Is it good for the US? Or for Iran? Or, for that matter, for the principal country involved, Iraq? Will it lead to fragmentation and Balkanization of the region, with three countries at odds: a Kurdish one, a Sunni one, and a possibly Iran-dominated Shiite one? Or will it lead to a unified country with autonomous but integrated and functioning parts?
After all, the US itself is a republic. Our central government has become so strong that we sometimes forget how relatively weak it was at the beginning, and how powerful the separate state identities. After all, it was only a century and a half ago (and less than a century at the time I was born) that we fought an exceptionally bloody and costly civil war to decide–among other things–just this very question of the autonomy of various regions with opposed points of view.
Wretchard writes:
One ought to distinguish between an Iraq in three warring pieces and an Iraq of three federal pieces. I am by no means persuaded that a federation is dead. And the main reason is oil. The Kurds need to ship their oil to markets and this will be difficult, if not impossible without coming to some sort of arrangement with the Sunnis and Shi’a. The Sunnis for their part need to get a share of revenue from the Shi’a and the Kurds. Without some federal government structure through which they can negotiate their differences, little can be achieved.
Wretchard goes on to state in his own comments section (for some reason I could not make the link work; his is the fourth comment in the thread) that Iraq was always known to be headed for some form of federalism because of the relative balance in the three sections of the country. I recall reading as much, myself, almost from the start: that the natural form the Iraqi state would take would have to be federalist.
This 2004 document, for example, written by Dawn Brancati and appearing in the Spring 2004 issue of the Washington Quarterly, is a lengthy and academic discussion (which I’ve only briefly and partially skimmed) that argues the benefits–and in fact, the necessity–of federalism for Iraq. This is a much shorter version of the same argument: that a too-strongly centralized government in Iraq would be likely to point the way to a new tyranny, and that federalism wouldn’t necessarily fracture the country but could unite in the only viable way: loosely.
Federalism is the way our own country dealt with the knotty problem of unifying disparate and sometimes clashing elements. Of course, Iraq is far from being the US after the American Revolution. For one thing, it has a far bloodier and more traumatic history. For another, it lacks the US’s natural protection from neighboring countries with a huge agenda. For still another, it is divided much more along religious lines.
Under Saddam, Iraq was a country with a Shiite majority ruled by tyrannical members of the Sunni minority. After the fall of Saddam and without federalism, it would likely be run by the majority Shiites if people voted along religious lines, possibly under the strong and tyrannical influence of Iran. With federalism, it may break into three factions, one of them run by the majority Shiites, possibly under the strong and tyrannical influence of Iran, but needing to cooperate with the others to get things done. Which is better, which is worse?
If you bother to read the comments in Wretchard’s thread on the subject, you’ll find arguments on both sides. This could be another disastrous step in the process of bloody civil war. Or it could be part of a long-drawn out journey towards a more stable and functional Iraq. I don’t know; Wretchard says he doesn’t know, and of course no one knows, although someone will be proven right some day with the hindsight of 20/20 vision.
I think a federalist government would be an interesting form of government to impliment, which, I beleive, would result in the rise of a powerful centralised government. I would be interested to see whether this would come about through eventual legislation or through military means, though.
So nice to experiment with people.Bush looks at Rumsfeld who looks at Wolfowitz who looks at Perle who looks at Baker and all they can say is “I don’t know, do you know?” Lot of blood spilled in that uncertain moment for this “bold” experiment. Why should the Kurds stay in such a federation?Why couldnt the Shia pump the oil to the Gulf through Iran and leave the Sunni totally out of any equation? Do you really not see what you’ve helped create with your naive boosterism? oceans of blood.
Right, trout. No blood flowing in Iraq until the neocons came in and messed everything up–at least none that you need worry about.
People like troutsky…always complaining, but never a solution. Not even a bad one, or a mistaken one, or one that just maybe might work.
Rather, “Leave them alone to kill each other….or us too, maybe.”
The Brits used to have a saying…”I’m all right, Jack.”
It meant that one didn’t care about anything else as long as things were okay for that individual. It’s why Darfur exists, why Rwanda and Somalia and all the other ills of the world are allowed to fester. Your boots are warm, troutsky. You can type on your computer… your broadband works just fine. Thanks for doing so much for the world.
Yes, but this is *our* fault. If we had done nothing then the other blood would be on someone else’s hands and we are better than that.
*sigh* There are times that politics can get really depressing. Things will have to get MUCH worse before we ever have the will to fight it to the end. The above sentiments are too attractive to many who do not really like confrontation. It’s so much easier.
It will be interesting to see what people like Troutsky will actually decide to do when complaining about conservatives isn’t enough. They will either have to keep on doing what they have spent the last 5 years saying is wrong or do something that will invite more terror attacks.
And note: yes the first paragraph is not my belief. So no one needs to flame me over it.
Posted a reply here, neo.
Link
Big Pharoah
BP echoes some of my sentiments. Anything, anything would be better than Bush sitting in his Oval Office with his thumbs up his a**, talking about how we need to talk more about the UN.
Get rid of the enemies of Iraq, in Iraq. Get rid of the enemies of America, in Iraq. How hard is that for Bush to give the order? It ain’t like he is some refugee in Darfur, getting sliced apart cause he is powerless. Bush has weapons systems up the wazoo, from nuclear submarines to stealth bombers, to Special Forces groups as well as the US Marines. They all follow his orders, if he will only give them.
You want to end the civil war? Then use the solution that we knew worked on the South. Get rid of the army, burn their cities to the ground, and otherwise shatter their will to fight. You may start on the Sunnis or the Shia, it matters not.
In this war, we don’t have to coddle anybody in Iraq like Lincoln had to compromise with the NOrthern Democrats like Andrew Johnson in order to be re-elected. Bush is free to act, he just isn’t willing to act for some reason or another.
There is a difference between “micromanagement” and No Management, and I hope Bush knows the difference.
I got my complaints about how Bush started this war. But none of that compares to the stuff he is doing now (or isn’t doing). Sure, he may not be able to change the past to satisfy me or others. But that don’t excuse his lack of action NOW, does it?
One thing we might want to start to do is stop incorrectly referring to the violence as evidence of a civil war. Muslims are killing other Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere because of religious differences. What is occurring there and throughout the Muslim world is a RELIGIOUS war between Muslim sects. Pure politics has very little to do with it except as a way to further religious goals and to gain power for competing sects. Picture Baptists and Methodists killing each other for a clearer picture of the situation.
You say we have a RELIGIOUS war in which muslim sects are fighting for political and religous power within Iraq.
A religious aspect to a violent conflict within a country simply does not disqualify that conflict from the “civil war” label.
See Lebanon 1978-1990 for just one example.
But for some reason we are not allowed to call what is happening in Iraq a civil war. Sounds like another case of fearing the truth might “discourage” the public’s will to fight.
Religious sects battling each other in the name of religion, which is what is happening, is a religious war, whether or not one wants to admit it or not. If the strife in Iraq is seen for what it is, religious sects engaged in a religious war, then it immediately comes to mind that the West, in it’s WOT, is actually engaged in a religious war, albeit one-sided(the Muslims attacking the West for religious reasons – the West defending itself for strategic reasons). That is why the MSM and the Left are so fervent that the strife in Iraq be incorrectly labeled as ‘civil.’
And then again, it may just be a civil war. What then? Does that necessarily mean that we must pull out? Or do we pick and choose among the other seemingly impossible conflicts to contend with, (Darfur, Somalia, Kosovo)?
Are there conflict worth US military intervention? Which ones?
I’ve been reading lately along the lines that Iraq and Afghanistan are very low cost methods to drain the Jihadists from other possible venues like the US. It seems we’ve let a couple of terrorists go just to have them later killed in Iraq – or was it Afghanistan? The idea is that the real Jihadists are streaming to the Afghan/Iraq area to cause havoc in the name of Allah against the infidel occupiers – and are dying by the score.
Think about it for a minute: US casualties are low. Slowly but surely the Iraqi and Afghan armies grow in size and expertise and will take over more of the risky front line stuff. There’s a probably going to come a point, if US troops are allowed to stay long enough, when US casualties will shrink to almost nothing. And when the real conflagration comes as the WOT inevitably heats up we’ll have a battle hardened(but not battered), experienced corps of first line military leaders in the field.
It seems ideal, really. Sort of a super-realistic training camp/rehearsal area where a trainee occasionally dies or is wounded. We might even want to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan past military necessity(sharp intake of breath, gnashing of teeth and soiling of underwear among the anti-war crowd), just to continue to lure a goodly amount of would-be Jihadists into the Iraq/Afghan theater to be slaughtered.
“Right, trout. No blood flowing in Iraq until the neocons came in and messed everything up–at least none that you need worry about.”
Same torture chambers… just different management. And you don’t have a problem with that?
I love to here the neocon nutjobs talk about how bad things were in Iraq before we f’d it up even more.
You are intellectually challenged and empathetically impoverished.
You are intellectually challenged and empathetically impoverished.
Which is just a fancy way of saying, “Fuck you, I hate you all,” without sounding like you’re throwing a tantrum.
“People like troutsky…always complaining, but never a solution. Not even a bad one, or a mistaken one, or one that just maybe might work.”
People like you go around causing all the problems and expect everyone else to bail your ignorant butts out.
“Which is just a fancy way of saying, “Fuck you, I hate you all,” without sounding like you’re throwing a tantrum.”
Which is just a juvenile neener neener.
Religious war can be, of course, a civil war anyway, and can be really devastating, as it was in Germany in 17 century. In this war between Catholics
and Protestants almost half of its population perished. It is a question of a measure of intensity. But Bagdad now does not look like Beirut in 80 or Saraevo in 90. I have seen it only in TV, but the picture was terrible. It is more like Belfast or Londonderry; we do not call it civil war, do we? The more important is percentage of population involved in hostilities, and how majority judge it. If it condemns the combatants and try to normalize the situation, we can’t call it civil war. This is the case in Iraq now, it seems to me.
“People like you go around causing all the problems and expect everyone else to bail your ignorant butts out.”
No, Pete, people like YOU ignore all the ills of the world, complain about the people who attempt to do something about them, and when you’re in trouble, expect the people who DO something to bail YOUR ignorant butt out.
Pathetic.
Hey, pete, as a public service could you provide us with lists on current genocides, slavery, and FGM?
People like pete needs somebody to stomp down to make themselves feel better. That is why, like terrorists, they need to pick on someone weak, like women or the West. And that is why pete continues to come here and comment, instead of reading and listening. Not here to read or listen, but here to stomp on people, which I guess is fun for him.
Compared to the true believers like the Islamic Jihad, pete here is a joke, he ain’t the Real Deal.
But for some reason we are not allowed to call what is happening in Iraq a civil war.
You can call it a Civil War, but you just can’t be saying that so long as you can call it a civil war, that you are right. You have to make explanations and presentations on how things are “different” if it is a civil war as opposed to what other people call it.
People being obsessed with titles, means they aren’t busy doing anything about anything else. I suppose arguing about what to call something is easier and more satisfying than analyzing the situation as it is and dealing with it. If you w, as with Michael, know everything about how it is a civil war, then you must know how to solve it, now wouldn’t you.
But if you don’t know how to solve it, if you aren’t going to solve it, and if you aren’t even going to talk about how to solve it, what the hell does it matter what you or anyone else “calls” it? Except to raise yourself up on the moral high ground, touting how righteous you are, of course, for calling a civil war a civil war. Bravo, congratulations on winning the prize.
Useless people are simply that, useless.
Yammer, ya big ninny: YOU called it a civil war. Then “grackle” – who is ostensibly on your side – argued that it is not a civil war, it is a religious war.
*sheesh*
It makes me laugh to see you neo cons have now started to admit that Iraq is a mess and getting worse. Took you a while, welcome to the world of sense.
Sergey
I appreciate the point you are trying to make but by any measure what is now happening in Iraq dwarfs the conflict in Northern Ireland, and is much closer to the Lebanese Civil War than you seem willing to allow.
Dead in Northern Ireland conflict (1969-2001): 3,523
Dead in Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990): Over 100,000
Dead in Iraq since March 2003: 50,443
Yammer, ya big ninny: YOU called it a civil war. Then “grackle” – who is ostensibly on your side – argued that it is not a civil war, it is a religious war.
Un-Kosher, you ignorant lout, let’s be clear here.
I can call it a civil war because I offer solutions to my civil war. Other people, and this includes you, care not for the solutions but for the “moniker”. They want to win the right to name it, so that they can go home and declare victory, having “one upped” the opposition.
You see things as your side against the other side, your side calls it a civil war, other side doesn’t. How blind can you get? Why don’t you try looking at the BP.
It doesn’t matter to me whether Sergey calls it a civil war or not, because his solutions, recommendations, and analysis are good ones, useful ones. Quite consistent with my explanations of the violence in Iraq. You don’t need to call it a civil war or not a civil war, to solve it. But you do I guess, because you prefer playing with the numbers game more than you would in helping to end the conflict.
Instead of using Sergey’s examples to craft some strategy or counter-strategy, you just quibble over the numbers as if they matter. What, an extra 50,000, will that mean you win and he loses? So small and near-sighted.
It seems ideal, really. Sort of a super-realistic training camp/rehearsal area where a trainee occasionally dies or is wounded. We might even want to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan past military necessity(sharp intake of breath, gnashing of teeth and soiling of underwear among the anti-war crowd), just to continue to lure a goodly amount of would-be Jihadists into the Iraq/Afghan theater to be slaughtered.
It sounds good to me. If he calls that civil war or not civil war, what does it matter to me? Nothing. But it does matter to you, Unk. We all know that, no need to repeat it for our benefit.
One thing we might want to start to do is stop incorrectly referring to the violence as evidence of a civil war.
Grackle’s point is more or less consistent with mine. He doesn’t disagree with me, and neither did he attack me, simply because I don’t put names on things in order to attempt to sabotage it as other people do, unk.
Whether you call it “politics” or “religious conflict”, the solutions are the same to the violence in Iraq.
Please, by all means, continue to play the naming game. I am sure Iraq will thank you in 20 years, for such worthwhile endeavours.
It is not going to be a civil war, after we dismember Al Sadr and send his body parts to the Sunnis, the Badr Islamic Army Brigades, and Iran. With the promise that if they don’t start doing what is good, we’ll do the same to them except we’ll also feed the parts to the pigs. So what’s the use of you trying to one up the rest of us, by seeking to call it a civil war? It is not enough for you, unk, for me or anyone else to “call” it a civil war. We also have to be “defeatist
One thing we might want to start to do is stop incorrectly referring to the violence as evidence of a civil war. Muslims are killing other Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere because of religious differences. What is occurring there and throughout the Muslim world is a RELIGIOUS war between Muslim sects. Pure politics ==== religious goals and to gain power for competing sects.
grackle
If Grackle concedes that there is religious, sect, and political power games going on, then in my view, that is a civil war. Meaning, anything that solved civil wars in the past, like the Ami Civ War, may solve this one. Therefore, they both must be a civil war. I don’t have to believe that there are boatloads of Iraqi deaths, 600k or 6 million or whatever, for it to be a civil war in my view.
As grackle said refering to the violence. So of course I am not refering to anything as a civil war because of the violence, of any violence I see. But because of the very things grackle himself related and described. As Sergey made the point. If you recognize that a religious war is going on, why not call it a civil war as well? Unless… of course, you don’t want to give people like Unk and NoeNeoconned the satisfaction of saying “I told you so”.
But I don’t play that “name game”. It’s ridiculous to me. It doesn’t matter what we call it, people like conned will still be out there sabotaging and dancing in the streets with the blood of innocents on their hands, as if they be having a party or something.
I didn’t like Yon’s post not because I disagreed with the moniker of civ war or even agreed with it, but because Yon didn’t say what can solve the “civ war” as he sees it. All he did was complain about how he got attacked for using the subject. Well, ya, of course that is going to happen if you play the name game, people are going to call you names. If you talk about solutions and how to solve the war problems, then names no longer matter.
You don’t even need to read my posts, to get a hint of the name game.
But Bagdad now does not look like Beirut in 80 or Saraevo in 90.
When people conned and unk call it a civil war, they are saying it looks out of control and crazy. But that isn’t what I mean, and people know it. It is true that Baghdad is not Saraevo and Beirut. All the more important that we crush the enemies of Iraq now, before they start gathering power and recruits. Or you can join his party of sense here
Took you a while, welcome to the world of sense.
“No, Pete, people like YOU ignore all the ills of the world, complain about the people who attempt to do something about them, and when you’re in trouble, expect the people who DO something to bail YOUR ignorant butt out.”
A fundamental principle used throughout the lives of thinking and empathetic people is to obey the axiom “first do no harm”. YOU f’d up Iraq due to your unbelievable ignorance and failure to obey that simple axiom. Take responsibility for your actions
children!
is there no way to block the pete-style bs and get back to useful exchanges?
“People like pete needs somebody to stomp down to make themselves feel better. That is why, like terrorists, they need to pick on someone weak, like women or the West.”
Do you think women are week? Youare in for a big surprise. How old are you?
Do you think the West is weak? What planet are you on?
“And that is why pete continues to come here and comment, instead of reading and listening. Not here to read or listen, but here to stomp on people, which I guess is fun for him.”
The world is about to “stomp” on the USA due to the arrogance, ignorance
and lack of empathy of people like YOU.
“Compared to the true believers like the Islamic Jihad, pete here is a joke, he ain’t the Real Deal.”
What does Islamic Jihad have to do with Iraq? We are killing the rank and file Iraqis that want us out of their country and they are killing our service men and women. They want us out plain and simple. You and your ignorant neocon friends try to frame the mess that you have made of Iraq as some sort of fight against Islamic Jihad. Guess what? America does not believe your nonsense anymore.
You are part of a pathetic minority.
“is there no way to block the pete-style bs and get back to useful exchanges?”
Oh I could be blocked easily but you wont be able to block out the wrath that will befall the neocon.
“Oh I could be blocked easily but you wont be able to block out the wrath that will befall the neocon.”
Oh brother!
Harry
Do you really think that your lttle neocon wetdream is going to last?
Ok neo, I understand that you meant well, there was a vicious tyrant in power and you wanted to help.Lot of people need help.But what if some help is the kind of help you can do without? Here is your old buddy Norm Geras ” Had I been able to forsee in Jan. and Feb of 03, that the war would have the results it actually had..I would have withheld my support without giving support to the opposition..”
How lame is that? Are you still willing to take your new intervention technique to all the oppressed people in the world? And to the fools who say I support no alternative, try to pay attention: We are going to give the means of production back to the workers.No more wars, no more Sadaams or Kim Jong’s or GWBs.If you need more details Ill provide some links.Thanks.
British troops have been in Ulster for half a century now. This was the main reason why religious clashes have not morphed there into civil war.
When France took responsibility of Lebanon, there were the same religious divides as now – Shia, Christians and Sunny. But civil war began only after French troops withdrawal.
The same for India, Pakistan, Indochina and so on. Presence of foreign troops almost everywhere prevented civil wars, not cause it. Religious and etnic wars usually begin as result of troops withdrawal, not the other way round.
“We are going to give the means of production back to the workers”
How pathetic. And who are “we”? Socialists, of course. The same old Marxist gibberish. I have seen in my own country how this works: 25 million dead in Gulag. And a string of wars everywhere, from Angola and Nicaragua to Afganistan and Vietnam. How stupid one must be to believe in this nonsense after all the history of 20 century?
“We are going to give the means of production back to the workers.”
No more wars, just mass murder on an unbelievable scale. The ultimate oppressive society with the misery spread to all but the elite. So what lessons from the 20th Century did you learn?
“the rank and file Iraqis”
You mean the ones that are killing their own people indiscriminately? The ones that don’t want any form of democracy? What a silly, simplistic analysis. If I just call them rank and file I must be right. Your obsessive hatred is showing.
Sergey has the best take on the Petes and Nonnys of the world: “How stupid one must be to believe in this nonsense…”
75 years of misery in the Soviet Union apparently was lost on the majority of Socialists. The failed economies of many of the socialist EU countries apparently haven’t taught “progressives” anything.
They who are ignoring history are asking all of us to be doomed to repeat it.
This is for Pete and his “first, do no harm”…
Had to share this wonderful comment from “7th Heaven” at The Belmont Club:
“First, do no harm.
Second, talk to tyrants and terrorists who oppress or kill their people or who threaten or kill yours and offer them money, inducements, and your good faith.
Third, levy sanctions against their regimes, China and Russia willing, if they won’t stop after years of continued threats and mass murder.
Fourth, wring hands when talk and sanctions don’t work.
Fifth, realize that sanctions harm innocents and children and hand-wringing induces eventual arthritic pain, so stop both before doing further harm.
Sixth, decide that tyrants and terrorists are not only acting within politico-cultural norms for their regions, they are victims reacting to Yankee-Zionist-Crusader-Capitalist imperialism.
Seventh, castigate selves for having been so hurtful and insensitive, then go to your Maker.”
Pretty much sums up the useful idiocy of the Left.