There's new support for federalism in Iraq, but this is not a
healthy sign.
By Reidar Visser
There
was a time when all Washington policy-makers wanted to see in Iraq was a
pro-federal movement among the minority Sunni Arab population. Back in 2005, at
the time of the drafting of the new constitution, the Bush administration
worried that scepticism towards federalism among Sunnis might torpedo the whole
constitutional referendum. (It almost did.) In 2007, at the height of the
"soft partition" debate in Washington, then-Senator Joe Biden made
several enthusiastic attempts at enlisting Sunni support for federalism, but to
no avail.
Similarly,
when the Akkaz gasfield in Anbar province first made headlines in 2007, it was
US generals, rather than Sunni Iraqis themselves, who spoke enthusiastically
about the prospect of energy development in the Sunni-majority region.
Today,
finally, Sunni interest in federalism exists in Iraq. In fact, it exists in
several forms. Since 2010, pro-federal movements have been noted in both Anbar
and Nineveh governorates. But most substantially, there is now a formal request
from the governorate council in Salahaddin, the home province of Iraq's former
leader Saddam Hussein, for a referendum to be held on a federal status for the
governorate.
If
successful, the referendum would put Salahaddin on par with the Kurdistan
Regional Government, which is the only existing federal region in Iraq as of
today. In theory, the request for a referendum should be honoured automatically
and immediately by the central government, but similar requests from two
Shiite-majority governorates (Basra and Wasit) have been ignored by Iraq's
Shiite prime minister, Nouri Al Maliki.
The
Sunni discovery of federalism in Iraq has taken place not as the result of a
sudden realisation of the beauty of local government, but rather as response to
a process of increased marginalisation and even humiliation at the level of the
central government.
A
keyword in this respect is "de-Baathification". Iraq has a
de-Baathification law from 2008 aimed at regulating the access of officials of
the former regime to positions in today's bureaucracy. With the exception of
the security sector, the law in itself is relatively permissive, allowing
reinstatement of most officials except those who were in the top echelons.
The
problem is the way it is applied, as well as the substantial amount of
extra-judicial de-Baathification that is taking place in Iraq. Since the run-up
to the parliamentary elections of March 2010, the pro-Iranian Shiite Islamist
parties have propelled anti-Baathism to the forefront in several illegal
variants, including attempts to sack Sunni members of the Iraqi bureaucracy that
have a Baathist past but whose professional reinstatement is covered by the
de-Baathification law of 2008.
Conversely,
Shiites with a Baathist past are generally left untouched, and even continue to
serve in positions in the security sector from which they should have been
removed according to the law.
This
played at least some role in the latest federalism bid in Salahaddin, alongside
complaints relating to the general economy of the governorate. Shortly before
the bid was launched in late October, a number of university officials in the
province were sacked with reference to allegations about a past in the secret
services of Saddam Hussein. Days later, much of Iraq was engulfed in a massive
security sweep with hundreds of arrests in which vague accusations of Baathism
again were used as a rationale by the government.
The
recent pro-federal current in Sunni majority-areas of Iraq is not a reflection
of any positive political trend in the country. Rather than representing a
linear trend of progress since 2007, it is testimony to how politics have
retrogressed since 2009 after having first recovered from the sectarian strife
of the preceding years. In 2009, Mr Al Maliki championed a return to more
centralist policies that was hailed by Sunnis and Shiites alike as a sign of
Iraq bouncing back from the sectarian strife that had almost created a civil
war between 2005 and 2007. In 2009, non-sectarianism and anti-federalism went
hand in hand.
Rather,
it is the rapid downwards trend in Iraq since the parliamentary elections in
2010 that has prompted some Sunnis to think in terms they themselves swore they
would never employ just a few years ago. The secular Iraqiyya party - which
enjoys a particularly solid support base in Sunni-majority areas - came first
in those elections, but has been unhappy with the way the post-election process
has distributed power in the new Iraqi government.
-This commentary was published in The National on 14/11/2011
- Reidar Visser is an historian on Iraq
- Reidar Visser is an historian on Iraq
No comments:
Post a Comment