Department of Duh --- Oct. 2005 Posts on the Iraqi Political Process

CNN's report that the Sunni Arab political bloc in the Iraqi parliament is considering removing themselves from the political process is further confirmation that the surge as a means of creating political breathing room for a political solution to be hammered out is and will continue to be a failure. And it should be an expected failure as the Sunni Arab position in the constitution that is currently in force is to be the bottom man on the totem poll. This failure was seen two years ago by this blogger and by many people better informed than I was, but let's hit the highlights from my pre-election predictions post at Fester's Place.

I am predicting that the Constitution will be ratified with overwhelming majorities in the South and the Kurdish North. I am also predicting that it will be rejected outright by 2/3rds of the voters in one province and not approved by a majority of voters in two more provinces......

Let us assume that the Constitution passes, and the Sunni Arab and Sadrist leaning populations vote near proportionally in December. So in January the next parliament will be roughly 20-25% Sunni Arab/insurgent sympathetic, 10% Sadrists and 60-65% of the same Screw the Sunni operating majority alliance between the SCIRI/DAWA Shi'ites and the Kurdish unified front. So how do the Sunni Arabs get anything that they want under those rules and conditions? They won't get centralized control of the oil as the Kurds and non-Sadrist Shi'ites like the current arrangement as it is now. They won't get a more centralized state for the same reason, they won't get weak deBaathification as everyone will vote against them.

I really am curious as to why the Sunni Arab parties think that any promises that they can get from the current governing majority are credible given the redefinition of a voter shenanigans that occurred in the past ten days.

and a couple more thoughts on Sunni-Arab political participation from a post after the ratification votes were counted:

If anything the situation is a bit worse because I thought that the Iraq Islamic Party (IIP) would have had more influence with the deal that was fundamentally a kick it to a committee for a special blue ribbon commission report on giving the Sunni's some window dressing in the next go around. However with two provinces rejecting outright, and two more seeing extremely heavy Sunni votes against ratification it reveals the weakness of the negoatiate/integrate into the political process viewpoint is within the Sunni Arab population. If the IIP was influential, it should have been able to swing more votes to its way in at least Sal ah Din province.
.....

The pessimistic take is that the Sunni Arab populatoin is seeing that it is an irrelevant political group within the Iraq that is forming now and that armed resistance is the better way of getting a tolerable deal when the Americans leave than participating in politics. At the same time, the politically orientated groups are discredited because they did not have the pull that they thought that they had to get the deal to go through in all but Anbar.

The political process in Iraq is a farce as the superstructure of the constitution dictates that the Sunni Arabs get screwed. Further more, the legitimate fears of everyone else in Iraq that the Sunni Arabs, if allowed into the government with significant influence to buy off the threat and actualization of violence, would successfully conduct a coup in the intermediate future as this group has done so numerous times in the past, dictates against any inclusion and consideration of Sunni Arab political demands. Finally, the ever increasing weakness of the primary loyalties of the typical fighter towards the central government based in the Green Zone and the devolution of loyalty towards sect, clan, tribe and neighborhood forces the governmental elites to rely upon a combination of American military protection and foreign mercenary protection for their own safety.

Seeing this being reported this week instead of two years ago is a disappointment as that information would have been useful then instead of being part of a litany of futile tragedy today.