Iraq Moves a Step Closer to Civil War; the MSM Yawn

Arianna Huffington
Thu Jan 12, 5:33 PM ET

Will yesterday's in-your-face decision by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, Iraq's most influential Shiite leader, to renege on his pledge to amend the new Constitution in a manner acceptable to Sunnis be the shove in the back that sends Iraq over the brink into all-out civil war?

It certainly has that potential.

Before the constitution was put to a vote in October, Sunnis were threatening to boycott the referendum. The problem? The charter contains provisions that decentralize political power in the country in a way that leaves the vast majority of Iraqi oil under the control of Kurds and Shiites -- and the Sunnis facing an impoverished future. See Juan Cole for more on this.

Desperate to avoid a Sunni boycott, the Bush administration twisted every Shiite arm it could find. U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad ultimately brokered a last-minute deal that would make it possible for Sunnis to substantially amend the constitution once the newly elected Parliament is seated.

That deal allowed the December elections to proceed -- and the Bush administration to use Sunni participation in those elections as a major PR talking point. (See this bloggingheads.tv debate between Mickey Kaus and Robert Wright about whether there's still a good chance that democracy will catch on in Iraq.)

Indeed, in his town-hall appearance yesterday, the president cited Sunni involvement as evidence of the "remarkable" political progress in Iraq: "In the last election, the rejectionists who had sat out the first couple of elections -- many Sunnis sat out; they said, we're not going to be involved in the political process -- got involved. Slowly but surely, those who were trying to stop the advance of democracy are becoming marginalized."

And, in previous speeches, he has described the agreement to allow changes to the constitution as a key element in keeping the political process moving forward. "Thanks to last-minute changes, including a new procedure for considering amendments to the constitution," he said on the eve of the December vote, "the revised constitution was endorsed by Iraq's largest Sunni party... Sunnis voted in large numbers for the first time. They joined the political process. And by doing so, they reject the violence of the Saddamists and rejectionists. Through hard work and compromise, Iraqis adopted the most progressive, democratic constitution in the Arab world."

Now it is clear that the Shiites were just saying what the Bush administration wanted to hear, never meant it, and never intended to follow through. "We will stop anyone who tries to change the Constitution," said al-Hakim yesterday.

This belligerent stance could easily drive Iraqi Sunnis (in the words of today's New York Times) "into the arms of radical Sunni groups in neighboring lands" and "leave the Shiites even more dependent than they are now on Iran and American troops."

Sounds like a recipe for endless civil war -- and a foreign policy debacle of unimaginable proportions for America.

But, despite this looming disaster, with the exception of the Times' powerful editorial, the mainstream media are giving this major development hardly any play. Even the New York Times has its news story on al-Hakim's statements on page A-10 -- and at the very bottom of the page at that. In the Washington Post, the story appears on A-14, while the Los Angeles Times and USA Today do not cover the story at all! And a LexisNexis search didn't yield a single mention of the story on any of the broadcast or cable news shows.

So the match that could ignite an all-out civil war in Iraq was just lit and the U.S. media can barely muster a yawn.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20...FCazqSs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3YWFzYnA2BHNlYwM3NDI-

Here's the full NYTs article...

Shiite Leader Rejects Big Charter Changes, Frustrating Sunnis
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and QAIS MIZHER

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 11 - Iraq's most powerful Shiite leader on Wednesday rejected making major changes to the new Constitution, diminishing Sunni Arab hopes of amending the charter to avoid being shut out of the nation's vast oil wealth.

Sunnis were reluctant to sign on to the Constitution last fall, fearing that provisions granting wide powers to autonomous regions would leave oil in the hands of Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south. Sunnis dominate in western and much of northwestern and northcentral Iraq, but the oil lies beneath Kurdistan and parts of southern Iraq that one day may be subsumed in a semi-independent region controlled by Shiites.

As a carrot for the Sunnis, the Constitution was amended before the October referendum so legislators elected in the national voting last month could change it with a two-thirds vote. Some Shiites also voiced a willingness to negotiate with Sunnis on amendments.

But on Wednesday Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, vowed to give no ground on crucial parts of the Constitution.

"We will stop anyone who tries to change the Constitution," said Mr. Hakim, whose party has close ties to Iran. "Many of the people who voted for us were promised federalism in the south," he said, referring to the form of government allowing for semiautonomous regions. He said Kurds, who joined Shiites to form the current ruling coalition, "agree with us about this condition, and we will continue our strategic coalition with our Kurdish brothers."

The speech was Mr. Hakim's latest hard-line statement directed at Sunni Arabs, whom Shiites accuse of fomenting violence to improve bargaining leverage in the new government. While he previously signaled unwillingness to reopen major constitutional issues, Mr. Hakim's belligerent declarations are sure to anger Sunnis hopeful of carving out a meaningful role in the government.

Yet it may not be that simple. While Sunni Arabs boycotted elections a year ago, they turned out heavily last month and are thought to have won about 20 percent of the seats in Parliament. A Western diplomat in Baghdad said Shiites and Kurds probably had not won enough seats on their own to reach the two-thirds majority needed to appoint an executive branch.

So while Shiites have enough votes to block constitutional changes, they may need to draw in parties other than the Kurds to obtain a two-thirds governing majority. If Sunnis are called on to make up that difference, amending the Constitution is sure to top their bargaining list.

Desperate to deflate the Sunni-dominated insurgency, United States officials are pushing Shiites to accept constitutional changes. The American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Monday that the charter "will likely need to be amended in the coming year to broaden support." He cited compromises "on some substantive issues such as federalization in Arab regions of Iraq."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/12/i...49e4d745e&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

 

Does your wife know that?

glynch is right "nothing to see here, move along..."

We're forgotten Afghanistan, messed up Iraq, time to move on to Iran while Joe America worries about who’s going to be in the super bowl…