Habem Paper
Looks like the Iraqi Constitution is going to pass. Hopefully people will be able to read it soon too. After that the Iraqi Hamilton, Madison and Jay can write pithy essays about why people should (have) vote(d) for it. At the very end of the process the first colonist touches ground on the shores of Iraq.
Comment by Hesiod —
October 17, 2005 @ 8:33 am
Jim,
Imagine what would have happened had the Iraqi authorities NOT rigged the vote [as seems likely], and let the Sunnis vote the Constitution down? [Whether it was rigged or not, frankly, is irrelevent at this point since Condi Rice said before the polls even closed that it looked like it was going to pass! It doesn’t take a paranoid persionality for the Sunnis to pick up on THAT signal!]
But, if the thing had been voted down, the Sunnis would believe that:
A) The vote wasn’t rigged!
B) The process was fair!
C) That democracy actually works!
D) That maybe an armed insurgency isn’t necessary to get political concessions.
E) That paricipating in the democratic process is going to pay off.
That outcome would have taken a lot of steam out of the insurgency, and would have given the Sunnis hope!
Now, they think the whole process is rigged against them, and that the only way they can achieve political aims is through violenece.
The Bush people are so fucking stupid and so concerened with making Bush look good that they hadn’t considered the best way to help Iraq and themselves! It’s counterintuitive to say that letting the Constitution die would ENHANCE Democracy in Iraq.
But the Bushies never think outside of the box. They are incapable of it. Then again, maybe they are using the wrong Box to begin with!
Comment by Jim Henley —
October 17, 2005 @ 8:47 am
Those are all reasons why I decided weeks ago the ”best” outcome would be for the Sunnis to succeed in voting the constitution down. Spencer Abraham disagreed with me (in conversation) on the grounds that the Shiites and Kurds would simply take THEIR balls and go home – or at least there was a risk of that. My concern in the immediate case is less fraud than farce – an entire nation voting in plebiscite on a constitution very few of them have seen, whether we’re talking final final draft (or is it STILL subject to revision?) or merely the ”final” draft that got printed on October 12. Who believes that there was time from 10/12 until 10/14 to distribute the constitution to all voters, to get them to read it and to have full debates? No, this was, our capo says vote for it stuff.
Comment by Hesiod —
October 17, 2005 @ 8:55 am
Spencer Abraham?
I know Spence, and he’s full of it.
Why would the Kurds and the Shi’ites ”go home” in that case? They’d just go back to the drawing board, with a new constituent assembly and draft a new Constitution.
After all, John Adams and the New Englanders had to stomach some pretty unsavory provisions in OUR constitution in order to get it ratified. 3/5 clause and all.
If the Kurds and Shi’ites have to actually give something up in return for a viable constitution, so be it.
The problem here is that it would be a bad outcome for the BUSH administration, because our pre-fabbed excuse to start drawing down our troop levels before the 2006 midterms owuld be destroyed.
The GOP would be looking at 1932 or 1974-esque electoral results at that point.
My point is also that it really didn’t matter what the Consitiution itself said. [Read Egypt’s. It ”guarantees” all sorts of rights they routinely ignore]. The point is to give the Sunnis hope, and convince them that democracy works and armed insurgency doesn’t.
Now, I’m afraid, we are looking at all out civil war.
Comment by Jim Henley —
October 17, 2005 @ 9:00 am
Doh! My mistake. I meant Spencer Ackerman.
Pingback by Crooked Timber » » Time’s Arrow —
October 17, 2005 @ 9:10 am
[...] constitution; I don’t know what that portends for future political unity. That said, Jim Henley made me laugh today: Looks like the Iraqi Constitution is going to pass. [...]
Comment by Hesiod —
October 17, 2005 @ 9:11 am
That’s who I thought you meant, Jim.
But I think Spencer Ackerman is wrong too! But, at least in Ackerman’s case, he’s not full of it!
I seriously doubt that Sistani, for example, would have a problem with the democratic process working the way it should.
Think how bloody Iraq would be if Muqtada al-Sadr was the spiritual and pooitical leader of the Shi’ites instead of Sustani.
BTW, on my blog over a year ago, I predicted that alSadr is extremely dangerous and a very astute politician. He will be running Iraq within five years.
Guaranteed.
Then all bets are off.
Comment by Hesiod —
October 17, 2005 @ 9:14 am
BTW, Jim…Juan Cole says he’s getting reports that there was vote rigging in Nineveh province.
Comment by Hesiod —
October 17, 2005 @ 9:15 am
Opps! Here’s the correct Juan Cole link.
First item.
Comment by Hesiod —
October 17, 2005 @ 9:16 am
Damn! did it again. THIS is the correct link.
All the Juan Cole stuff is good, though. So at least it’s not totally screwed up.
Comment by Glaivester —
October 17, 2005 @ 10:31 pm
As I have written elsewhere, I don’t think that any outcome on the Iraqi Constitution will stop the unrest in Iraq.
If the constitution didn’t pass, I doubt that the Shiites and Kurds would say ”we lost, fair and square.” They would probably decide to retaliate against the Sunni Arabs. The difference is, because the Shia and Kurds have the current government behind them, they can cover their tracks a lot better. An angry Sunni Arab might shoot a mortar at a Shiite mosque or blow up a Shiite marketplace; an angry Shiite or Kurd could get the police to arrest some Sunni Arabs and then summarily execute them at the jail.
Moreover, it is not unlikely that the Shia or the Kurds would rig the elections even if we tried to have fair ones. And it is quite possible that they would react badly to any attempt by us to prevent this; at the very least, it would be somewhat politically difficult to stand up to our allies if they were rigging the vote.
In any case, I doubt that the outcome of this vote matters one way or the other in terms of defeating the insurgency. This was done mainly for PR purposes, so that Bush would have ”something” to show the world.