Oil, the Iraq Constitution and Civil War

Juan Cole explains this morning that Sunni Arab members of the constitution drafting committee are still rejecting language that would make Iraq a "federal" republic.

In practice, this language would formally acknowledge Kurdistan and perhaps Shiite federations of provinces in the south as having a good deal of autonomy and a claim on petroleum revenues from Kirkuk (the Kurds) and Rumaila (the Shiites). The Sunni Arabs do not have a developed petroleum or natural gas field and so would suffer from a federal arrangement that left some of the petroleum income in the provinces rather than having the central government take it all and redistribute it. It increasingly looks as though the only way the committee can meet its August 1 deadline for informing parliament that it will be done by August 15 would be to simply over-rule the minority Sunnis with an up and down vote. The bitterness this step would leave in Sunni mouths might make it inadvisable.

The Kurds have always been the wild card in Iraq. We first discussed the situation here back in June of 2004 and Jazz had a good post at Running Scared last November. The Kurds will accept nothing but autonomy and the Sunnis' will find that unacceptable.

al-Hayat: Sunni parliamentarian Mishaan Jiburi, on a visit to Damascus, warned that for the Shiites and Kurds to run roughshod over the Sunni Arabs and their concerns would result in civil war. He said they would be driven in even greater numbers into opposition to the government and the foreign occupation. Among the points they most cared about, he said, were that Iranians must not be mentioned as a recognized Iraqi minority in the constitution. He said it was also important to distance the government from religion.

His concerns were echoed by five clan leaders from the Fallujah area meeting with US officers. They said a federal Iraq in which the Kurds got the oil of Kirkuk and the Shiites the oil of Rumaila in the south, would leave the Sunni Arabs with "the desert sands of Anbar."

Deputy speaker of the house and member of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, Hussein Shahristani, told al-Hayat on Saturday that some combination of southern, largely Shiite provinces may form a confederation within the framework of a federal Iraq. He said as many as ten provinces or as few as two could join this confederation (which would be analogous to the "Kurdistan" formed from northern provinces by the Kurds). He said most leading politicians had already agreed to this step, with the exception of a few who thought it might prove too much of a complication in Iraqi politics at the moment.

Shahristani also said that it was absolutely unacceptable for the Peshmerga paramilitary of the Kurdish parties to remain an armed force in Kurdistan. He said that defense would be the prerogative of the central government in Baghdad.

Adding fuel to the fire is the Iraqi governments new "Friendship" with Iran, not something that will please the Sunnis.

Two nations to sign security pact

TEHERAN: Calling a connection with Iran an ``inseparable part of Iraq's foreign relations,'' Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari met Iranian officials here on Saturday in the first visit by an Iraqi Premier to this Shia Muslim-dominated nation since Saddam Hussein's removal from power in 2003.

It should be clear that if the Iraqis have a constitution by the August, 15 deadline it will be without Sunni support or participation. That spells civil war making it a place we want US troops even less.