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Iraqi Constitution - 2 out of 3 groups agree...


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Guest bengalrick
[[url="http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=uri:2005-08-22T154656Z_01_MOL045458_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-IRAQ-C-COL.XML&pageNumber=2&summit="]reuters.com[/url]

[b]a couple of notes from the article:[/b]

[i]A draft prepared without the participation of minority Sunni Arab delegates appeared nonetheless to give ground to some of their concerns about Shi'ites and Kurds hiving off powerful federal regions in the oil-rich north and south.[/i]

[i]A text seen by Reuters defined Iraq as a "federal" republic but gave no details and one member of parliament's drafting committee, from the small Christian minority, said details of the extent and mechanisms of autonomy would be worked out later.[/i]

[i]Some Sunnis, complaining that consensus had been breached, said that was not enough to satisfy their demands that "federalism" be left out of the charter altogether.[/i]

[i]"We will campaign for public awareness to tell both Sunnis and Shi'ites to reject the constitution, which has elements that will lead to the break-up of Iraq and civil war," she said. [/i]

[i]Kurdish delegate Abdel Khalek Zangana said the provision on federalism was enough to satisfy Kurdish demands for guarantees they would retain the broad autonomy they already have in the north.[/i]

[i]Some Shi'ites, notably supporters of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, with a strong following in resource-poor central Iraq, also reject federalism and have campaigned for "Iraqi unity."[/i]


[b]a couple of my own notes: [/b]

i'm trying to keep it real... many good things will happen w/ a constitution, but other bad things could also... i'm conceeding this, and i expect others on the other side of the fense to do the same, and look at all of this objectivity and not the regular way we always end up going...

-nothing about womans rights mentioned... that is going to be a big deal, when this comes out...

-civil war is closer, but so is victory... its a big risk right now and losing means civil war, winning means a new constitution... we need to make sure the sunnis are on board...

-if the shiites and kurds are both on board, we can push the consitution through for now, but to be ratifyed in december, they need 2/3rd's vote, and they won't get it w/out listening to sunni requests... plus, the sunni's vow civil war w/out meeting their requests (though i assume this is a hardline objection, and compromise has to be an option)

-kurds will have (as of the agreement beween them and shiites) similar rights as they did before the war... they won't have saddam to mess w/ now though...

-oil profits have seemed to be agreeded upon... money is always a big deal, so this is some good news...

-kurds aren't mentioning the 5-10 year breaking off of iraq in any article i've read lately... not sure why... they are putting alot of power w/ regions, so it would be like 3 countries that have to come to an agreement instead of 3 countries...

what are your thoughts guys?? we don't know much until we all see a ratifyed constitution, but we are hearing quotes on both sides, and reuters supposidely has seen the proposed constitution...
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Guest bengalrick
[url="http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0823/p01s01-woiq.html"]click here[/url]

[quote][b]Sunnis' best friend in Iraq negotiations? The US[/b]


With a midnight deadline, the US pushes for a constitution that includes Sunni demands.

By Dan Murphy and Jill Carroll

BAGHDAD – Saleh Mutlak is a lead negotiator for Iraq's Sunni Arab community on the constitutional drafting committee and says he frequently feels isolated and pushed around.
He says Iraq's majority Shiites and politically powerful minority Kurds seem determined to ignore the concerns of his community in the constitutional negotiations, which face a provisional deadline of midnight Monday. He warns of the consequences if a constitution is drafted over Sunni objections.

 
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In fact, he says he'd despair completely of the process if it weren't for the help of a surprising new ally: the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad.

"Zalmay is the boss,'' says Mr. Mutlak, who himself has received death threats from members of his own community for participating in the process. "He's played a very good role slowing the other parties down, in talking to those who are asking for too much."

The US envoy and Iraq's Sunni Arab leadership might seem strange bedfellows. The Sunnis continue to refer to the country's Sunni-led insurgency as the "resistance" and often view the US project here as determined to convert them into Iraq's new underclass. After all, the toppling of Saddam Hussein lifted the boot from the necks of Iraq's Kurds and Shiites, and ended the dominant status of Iraq's Sunni Arab minority.

But US officials say they recognize that if a constitution is completed without buy-in from Iraq's Sunni Arabs, and without language that balances most of the country's competing interests, then it won't have a chance of fulfilling its primary goal: Ending the war.

Forging a consensus that might turn the constitution into a sort of peace pact looks as if it will take more time. But the US administration is pushing for fast results, so Ambassador Khalilzad is caught in the paradoxical position of having to move fast, and go slow.

How far Khalilzad and the US can and will go in trying to forge a consensus, however, is an open question. The Bush administration is eager to see the completion of the constitution, which will be touted as a victory in order to shore up flagging domestic support for the war. Iraq's Shiite majority, who control the interim parliament, are also eager to take control of a fully sovereign nation.

Iraq's ethnic Kurds, who have fought the central government from their northern stronghold for much of the last 80 years, are also eager for a quick result that will create a federal Iraq that guarantees them wide autonomy.

Both Kurdish and Shiite leaders have insisted for much of the past week that Monday night's deadline will be met, but Sunni leaders - who hold 15 of the 71 seats on the drafting committee - have been just as insistent that expanded autonomy for the Kurds is out of the question. They also reject Shiite demands that a major role be created for the Shiite clergy in Iraq's legal structure.

"As we see it, most of the problems have been solved,'' says Ali al-Dabag, a Shiite member of the constitution drafting committee. "We should finish soon."

Though it's possible that Monday night's deadline could be met, if the public objections of leading Sunnis are to be believed, that will happen only by ignoring their demands. If the deadline isn't met, the transitional parliament will probably vote themselves more time, as they did when the first constitutional deadline was missed a week ago.

"If they make the deadline because the Shiites and Kurds essentially rammed a draft through over Sunni Arab objections, there will be hell to pay,'' says Wayne White, who was the principal Iraq analyst for the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research until his retirement earlier this year.

"Despite the very real possibility that pushing through a draft constitution over Sunni Arab objections could prolong the violence, the Shiites and Kurds are pressing their agendas as if they had no understanding that such dire consequences were a serious possibility,'' says Mr. White.

US diplomats say they are aware of those risks, and Khalilzad's role has been to push them - sometimes cajoling, at other times reminding them of American blood spilled and money spent here - toward common ground. He participated in at least 10 hours of negotiations on Sunday, and was closeted with Iraqi political leaders throughout most of Monday.

Though in the past the US has insisted that Iraq would become a liberal, democratic model for the Arab world, the US ambassador has been a pragmatist in similar negotiations in the past. While serving as ambassador to Afghanistan, the country of his birth, Khalilzad helped write a constitution that carved out a major role for Islam in that country's laws.

"We are not getting any impression that they are with this side or with that. We feel they are trying to help our side as much as the other side," says Iyad al-Sammarai, spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni political group whose leaders have been arrested by American forces in the past. "I'm sure [the US] has a feeling that if a constitution is approved only by the Shiites and Kurds, they will not get what they want. What they want is stability."

Still, Mr. Sammarai says it's unclear how much US pressure can bring in this process, or if the desire for fast results will lead the US to sign off on a constitution without Sunni backing. Iraq's interim parliament is at least nominally sovereign, though reliant on the protection of 130,000 American troops.

"They're being helpful, but I can't tell if this is all they can do, or if they can do more,'' he says. "I feel Mr. Bush will say we're going ahead and meeting deadlines, so that's progress."

Part of the problem in finding a consensus that could satisfy the Sunnis is the violence among a segment of their own population. Sunni voters before last years election were intimidated away from the polls by insurgents, and the US military say there are growing attacks on efforts to register voters in Sunni areas now.

While Sunni leaders have said that if a constitution is pushed through, they'll mobilize Sunni voters to reject it, that may be easier said then done. If two-thirds of the voters in any three provinces reject the constitution in a referendum scheduled for October, it will be scrapped, and Sunnis are dominant in four provinces. But if the resistance prevents Sunnis from going to the polls at all, they won't be able to vote down an unsatisfactory constitution.

"We'll appeal to the resistance to let our people vote,'' says Shakr al-Falluji, a Sunni on the drafting committee. "Hopefully they'll listen."

White, now an adjunct scholar at the Middle East institute in Washington, says that's a tough proposition.

"It will be very difficult for Sunni Arab negotiators to accept even some of the compromise language currently on the table because agreeing to anything less than something close to their original demands makes them even more likely to be targeted by insurgents for assassination,'' he says. "The most vicious Sunni Arab insurgents are threatening Sunni Arabs who want to register to vote in the October referendum, making it harder for Sunni Arabs to employ the one political weapon they have left."[/quote]
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Guest BlackJesus
[quote]kurds aren't mentioning the 5-10 year breaking off of iraq in any article i've read lately... not sure why... they are putting alot of power w/ regions, so it would be like 3 countries that have to come to an agreement instead of 3 countries...[/quote]

[i][b]There won't be any 5 year deal or 10 year deal... Turkey won't allow it..... The constituion does allow for the Kurds to keep their own Peshmerga.... who right now is an equipped battle ready 60,000 man army that will declare independence the second we step out of Iraq.


I am really trying to find a silver lining of hope especially on the Kurdish issue, but from my knowledge of the area and the politics within the Kurds themself... i can't see any union with the Sunnis working whatsoever.... to me it looks ripe for a Shiite/Kurd alliance... where they split the country in half and rape the Sunnis together.... who deserve a little ass kicking (from them not us) anyway [/b][/i]
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Guest bengalrick
[quote name='BlackJesus' date='Aug 22 2005, 01:56 PM'][i][b]There won't be any 5 year deal or 10 year deal... Turkey won't allow it..... The constituion does allow for the Kurds to keep their own Peshmerga.... who right now is an equipped battle ready 60,000 man army that will declare independence the second we step out of Iraq. 
I am really trying to find a silver lining of hope especially on the Kurdish issue, but from my knowledge of the area and the politics within the Kurds themself... i can't see any union with the Sunnis working whatsoever.... to me it looks ripe for a Shiite/Kurd alliance... where they split the country in half and rape the Sunnis together.... who deserve a little ass kicking (from them not us) anyway  [/b][/i]
[right][post="135771"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

your opinion to this does matter to my perspective... it sounds like the sunnis know that the kurds want to break off after we leave and that is why they are so against federalism...

they do deserve it, but that is guarenteed to have a civil war... where the sunnis get massacred... but still: civil war is bad...
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Guest bengalrick
[url="http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2005082213450002374168&dt=20050822134500&w=RTR&coview="]cnn.com[/url]

[quote][b]Iraq draft says laws must conform to Islam -text [/b]



BAGHDAD, Aug 22 (Reuters) - A draft constitution for Iraq to be presented to parliament on Monday will make Islam "a main source" for legislation and ban laws that contradict religious teachings, members of the parliamentary drafting panel said.

One said the text, agreed by the ruling Shi'ite and Kurdish coalition over Sunni Arab objections, would read: "Islam is a main source for legislation and it is not permitted to legislate anything that conflicts with the fixed principles of its rules."

Shi'ite delegate Jawad al-Maliki said the wording was fixed.

[b]It appeared to be something of a compromise after secular Kurds had objected during negotiations to Islam being "the main source" of laws. It was not clear how legislation would be subjected to the test of conforming to Islamic principles. [/b]

Critics have accused Shi'ite Islamists who dominate the interim government and parliament of planning to impose clerical rule in the style of neighbouring Shi'ite Iran. They deny it.


Kurds had complained that U.S. diplomats, who have insisted that women and minorities should enjoy equal rights, had conceded ground to the Islamists in order to meet Monday's deadline for passing a draft constitution in the legislature.


© Copyright Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved. The information contained In this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of Reuters Ltd.[/quote]

it sounds to me like your boys (kurds) are going to be the sole reason that iraq isn't an "islamic" state... maybe (just speculating) that was the reason for not giving the kurds independance from the beginning... we knew that they would fight against being an islamic state (considering what they went through in the past, in just that)... either way, they are pissing off the sunnis somewhat b/c the language isn't strong enough for the religious state... that is probably a good thing, if we can work out the problem and avoid civil war...

but if they aren't a religious state, it will be b/c of the kurds... no question about that...
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Guest steggyD
A separate Kurdish nation can lead to a ton of instability. That would lead to unrest with Turkey, who wants to keep their Kurdish citizens within the borders of their country. They wish to lose no land.

BJ, I'm not saying that that is good or bad, I know you think the Kurds deserve their own nation, but the Turks might not like that too much. Then we have a whole new battle to deal with.

World War III to follow...
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Guest oldschooler
[quote name='steggyD' date='Aug 22 2005, 02:22 PM']A separate Kurdish nation can lead to a ton of instability. That would lead to unrest with Turkey, who wants to keep their Kurdish citizens within the borders of their country. They wish to lose no land.

BJ, I'm not saying that that is good or bad, I know you think the Kurds deserve their own nation, but the Turks might not like that too much. Then we have a whole new battle to deal with.

World War III to follow...
[right][post="135847"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]



Yeah I think the shit going on in Isreal
has proven that you can`t take land away from
some people and give it to others ...even if you think
they deserve it...
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