The Iraqi Political Paradigm – taking one step forward and two back.
The transitional road to democracy in Iraq has been symbolised by protracted negotiations, widespread animosity and mistrust and above all a lack of lasting compromise. However, in spite of the recent commendations by the US administration and the United Nations on progress in Iraq and the desire and effort to establish national reconciliation, particularly with the disenfranchised Sunni Arab population, fundamental problems continue to haunt Iraq.
The fulcrum of national discord is a long-running feud and increasing divide between the largely autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Baghdad, on a number of highly-contentious issues.
Often in Iraqi politics, much to the frustration of a disillusioned population and their foreign occupiers, where Iraqis take a step forward in striking the right reconciliatory tones, other deep-seated issues plaguing the social horizon, means it habitually takes two steps back.
On paper, two major milestones were achieved in Iraq recently. Firstly, the Iraqi parliament unanimously passed a law to allow certain ex-Baathist Party officials to return to public life, fulfilling a key demand of embittered Sunnis.
Secondly, the Iraqi parliament voted in a majority over a draft to modify the existing flag by removing the three stars that served as an icon of Baathist Party ideology, to satisfy demands by Kurds who refused to fly a flag that symbolised all the misfortune and suffering that they had endured under it.
Although it marked a rare union in the National Assembly, in essence the urgency of taking a swift measure to change the flag, where similar initiatives had been rejected in the past, was the threat of a great embarrassment that would have engulfed the Iraqi government at the planned meeting of pan-Arab parliamentarians in Kurdistan, had the Iraqi national flag not been raised on a territory of a member of the Arab League.
To blight short-lived hope, as agreement over the new temporary national flag was embraced, almost simultaneously another hot-issue came to the fore. Over three weeks into the new year, the Iraqi national budget for 2008, allocating some 49 billions dollars, is dramatically stalled.
At the heart of the debate are objections from Sunnis and particularly from the ruling Shiite alliance, whose traditional alliance with the Kurds is diminishing, on the allocation of 17% the national budget to the KRG. The Kurds had also insisted that the Kurdish Peshmerga should be paid out of the national defence budget as a legitimate “Iraqi” defence force. Other reservations, stemmed from the lack of accountability of government spending over the last few years and the perceived lack of strategy and clarity as to how the budget will be affectively spent to tackle key areas of poverty and unemployment.
In reality, the dispute over the national budget is an off-shoot of the bitter disagreement over the Iraqi hydrocarbon law all that was all but postponed indefinitely due to deepening disagreements between the fractious groups in Iraq, over the rights and jurisdiction of regions in the distribution of Iraq’s immense oil wealth.
Add the heated-disputes over the unilateral signing of oil-exploration contracts by the KRG in defiance of the oil ministry and the increasingly shaky-ties with Prime Minister al-Maliki’s Shiite alliance become ever noticeable.
All the while in the foreground, politicians stutter towards a much-publicised drive to bring the nation closer to reconciliation, reconstruction and stability.
Recent Arab motions to effectively reign-in what they perceive as Kurdish overreaching only served to fuel increasing antagonism.
150 Arab lawmakers, including both Shiites and Sunnis, issued a memorandum criticising the ‘go-it-alone’ mindset of the Kurds and attributing their stance on the holding of the much-delayed referendum on oil-rich Kirkuk, and signing of independent oil-deals as a threat against national unity.
As tensions simmer, the Sunni population continue to demand more influence in the national security forces, more representation in government and more of a direct sway on the future blueprint of Iraq, starting with the amendments to the Iraqi constitution which they see as unrepresentative of Sunnis who largely boycotted the vote.
However, despite the recent much-hailed gestures, meeting bold Sunni demands, whilst simultaneously seeking concord between the KRG and Baghdad, would be near impossible, at the current way each party is driving their bargain at the negotiating table.