Referendum in Iraq : "how to constitute a civil war"

[tocqueville]

By Pepe Escobar

Iraqis desperately need security, electricity, water, food rations, health care, education, jobs. Instead they get a referendum on a constitution few of Iraq's theoretical 15.7 million voters have debated and fewer still have even seen. Why? Because the occupying power said so. So forget about the real priorities needed to make life liveable. No constitution will be able to rule over a battlefield.

The US logic rules that the referendum is a crucial step in Iraq's democratic transition. But as Iraq is for the moment a vassal
regime, the occupiers basically redacted the draft "constitution", which is based on the November 2003 "made in the USA" interim constitution known as the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL). TAL's supervisor was L Paul Bremer, the former American proconsul in Baghdad.

The new supervisor is Zalmay Khalilzad, the White House's former Afghan and current ambassador in Baghdad. During the redaction of the constitution, Khalilzad was described by Reuters as a "ubiquitous presence". Just in case, Khalilzad and his team of American Embassy officials even volunteered their own constitution text to the Iraqis.

At a minimum, according to the Washington Post, they "helped type up the draft and translate changes from English to Arabic". Khalilzad constantly tampered with the redaction. Then he used any trick in the "divide and rule" notebook to try to mollify the Shi'ite parties and "include" Sunnis in a kind of reconciled, centralized Iraq - to no avail. For this purpose, he used the services of the former US intelligence asset and former interim prime minister (for six months), Iyad Allawi.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GJ15Ak02.html

[welshTerrier2]

1. The Iraqi Constitution; a cynical cover for partition

the Constitution does little more than partition Iraq ... pass or fail, the only thing it will assure is a country under the big US thumb ...

source: http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mike_whi_051015_the_iraqi_constituti.htm

Even America’s right-leaning media has conceded that the purpose of the constitution is to divide the country. So, why do we call it a constitution at all? Only in the skewed Bush-lexicon does the term “constitution” mean the same as “partition”. Most of us believe that a nations’ constitution should embrace the collective aspirations of its people. It should outline the commitment to civil liberties, social justice and human rights. In a democracy it should articulate the principles of representative government and the limits on executive authority.

There’s nothing even remotely like this in the Iraqi constitution. It was drawn up mainly to appease the Shi’ites and the Kurds in their hopes for regional autonomy, to exclude the Sunnis from future oil wealth, and to incite civil war. Bush had no intention of delivering a constitution that protected the integrity or sovereignty of a unified Iraq. What he has produced are the articles of succession, not a constitution. By this same rationale, Bush would have supported the cause of the Confederacy prior to our own Civil War. <skip>

The real reason the western media keeps reiterating the civil war mantra is to prepare the public for the intensification of hostilities against the Sunni resistance. The media is simply producing the cover for the Pentagon to act with even greater impunity. In reality, there is no danger of a civil war. Iraqis know their enemy. <skip>

The constitution was designed to legitimize the occupation, but the occupation will become increasingly more tenuous as the resistance grows and Washington’s cynical plan becomes more apparent.