The Iraqi Constitution; an Overview

by Writer Team | August 19, 2005 11:21 am

As predicted by Newsinsider, last Monday the deadline passed to which the first draft of the Iraqi constitution[1] should have been completed. Seen as a bad omen by many it became clear that this deadline would not be reached and the parliament agreed unanimously to extend the deadline by a week. So why is this constitution such a hassle, what causes the disagreements which delay completion and maybe more importantly should Iraq even form a nation?

The place to start is with the people, is there disagreement among them what morals and values should become law. Do they have different views on life?
An easy question with an easy answer: YES!

Iraq consists of three major ethnic-religious groups consisting of the Shia Arabs, the Sunni Arabs and the Kurds. They do not share the same idea of what a nation should be, the Kurds want an autonomous state in the north region of Iraq and the Shiites want the same in the southern region of Iraq which holds some of the most oil-rich land of the entire nation. The Sunnis obviously disagree, mainly because it would leave them with the central region of Iraq which holds little to no oil. To make their point stand out more to the Western forces they vigorously compare such a federal state to the one of former Yugoslavia which was coincidentally torn apart by war in the recent past.

So shouldn’t we simply agree to disagree, shouldn’t we learn from these views that maybe, just maybe, Iraq just doesn’t make sense as a nation. Did it ever make sense? Well actually no, Iraq simply exists because the French and British formed some sort of political potpourri after the Ottoman Empire fell at the end of World War I.

Naturally our fearless President cannot accept such a fact and is pushing to get this over with so he doesn’t look like the complete fool he is. Many believe this “forced” constitution will result in some sort of Islamic republic, similar to Iran. The result will become clear in a few days as the new deadline will pass on Monday. Whatever it will be the citizens of Iraq still have a say in their national referendum on the 15th of October, if approved it will serve as basis for a new election on December 15.

Source URL: https://www.newsinsider.org/167/the-iraqi-constitution-an-overview/

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