Irak: Vil konstitutionen underminere Iraks demokrati og stabilitet?

New York Times har en uhyre anbefalelsesværdi artikel om Iraks konstitution, og hvordan den vil underminere demokrati og stabilitet i Irak. Artiklen er skrevet af en krigstilhænger, men er yderst skeptisk for fremtiden. Artiklens pointer er hver at huske, når Bush/Fogh på torsdag vil erklære Iraks valg som en sejr for demokratiet og krigen. På torsdag vil Bush/Fogh sandsynligvis erklærer valget for demokratiets sejr (og krigens). Sandheden er dog, at volden tiltager og selve konstitutionen vil øge spændingerne og muligvis føre til Iraks opløsning, eller at Irak i realiteten vil være underlagt Iran og Saudierne.

Hovedpointen er:

Profound tensions and contradictions have been enshrined in the Constitution of the new Iraq, and they threaten the very existence of the state.

Iraks styre virker demokratisk, men vil i realiteten være styret af "klaner":

While that Parliament, as it is designed in the Constitution, looks like a democratic institution, it doesn´t work like one. Rather, it is an artificially constructed collection of ethnic and sectarian voting blocs. If the experience of the interim government is any guide, the few people who control those blocs are the ones who will wield real power.

Endvidere er parlamentet udstyret med utrolig stor magt til at afsætte den udførende magt, og dette vil svække kampen imod volden:

At a time of civil war and pervasive violence, in other words, no one person or institution can be said to be in charge of the executive branch of the federal government.

I konstitutionen er det planen, at regioner skal kunne få udstrakt selvstyre i en sådan grad, at de kan beholde olieindtægter og nægte hæren adgang til f.eks. at bekæmpe oprør:

This guarantees that the more Iraqi provinces opt for regional status, and get it, the more the federal state will shrivel up and die. Moreover, with the exception of those who reside in provinces without oil (or in Baghdad, which cannot join a region), it is in the interest of every populist demagogue to press for regional status, because it is at that level that the lawmaking that truly affects day-to-day life will take place.
The powers of the new regions will be enormous. Not even the Iraqi Army can travel through one without the permission of the regional Parliament.

Dette magttomrum vil sandsynligvis blive udfyldt af Iraks nabolande, som kan støtte de etniske mindretal:

By ceding and dismissing centralized power, Iraqis may end by ceding all their power. Iran in the short run, and the Arab world in the long run, will fill the vacuum with proxies, turning the dream of a democratic and reborn Iraq into a dystopia of warring militias and rampant hopelessness.

Iraks konstitution er dermed markant anderledes end vestlige, og det vil opløse staten:

A decentralized, federal state system that devolves power to the regions is not the same as a dysfunctional one in which power at the federal level has been eviscerated. The former preserves power while distributing it; the latter destroys it. At the moment Iraqis have a dysfunctional and powerless state. The Constitution does not fix this; it makes it worse.

Konklusionen er entydig:

Democracy is not reducible to placing an Iraqi seal of approval upon a situation that is manifestly worsening by the day. The 79 percent of people who voted in favor of a constitution that promotes ethnic and sectarian divisions are unwittingly paving the way for a civil war that will cost hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. Nothing is worth that.
Without the return of real power to the center, the ascent of sectarian and ethnic politics in Iraq to the point of complete societal breakdown cannot be checked. We cannot fight the insurgency, rebuild Iraq and live in any meaningful sense as part of the modern world without a state. There are no human rights, no law, and no democracy without the state; there is only anarchy and a state of insecurity potentially much worse than what Iraqis are experiencing today. For democracy to emerge out of the current chaos in Iraq, the state must be saved from the irresponsibility of the Iraqi parties and voting blocs that are today killing it.

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