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description= 4 posts published by Reidar Visser during December 2006;
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iraq, and, for, the, gulf, analysis, archive, december, 2006, archives, categories, meta, my, latest, book, on, amazon, com, twitter, updates, subscribe, recent, posts, timetabled, conditional, surge, strategy, dealing, with, sadrists, study, group, regionalisation, not, balkanisation, federalism, from, below, in, some, historical, comparative, reflections,
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the (697), and (205), for (116), that (114), iraq (100), iraqi (85), with (75), this (65), from (59), would (58), #federalism (45), but (42), was (39), their (38), iqlim (37), some (32), are (32), 2006 (31), has (30), referendum (29), have (28), two (28), not (28), one (27), more (26), may (26), process (24), spain (24), which (24), new (24), regions (24), there (23), had (23), etherington (23), federal (22), regional (22), should (22), politicians (22), level (21), about (21), all (21), even (21), december (21), also (20), such (20), region (20), governorates (20), been (20), any (20), janub (20), united (20), shiite (19), could (19), constitution (18), local (18), political (18), government (18), states (18), surge (18), national (17), sadrists (17), law (16), autonomy (16), into (16), pre (16), governorate (16), were (16), policy (16), other (15), point (15), can (15), many (15), initiative (15), basra (15), poll (15), october (15), its (15), initiatives (15), what (15), they (15), sadrist (15), below (14), will (14), federalisation (14), wasat (14), might (14), issues (13), 2005 (13), today (13), june (13), time (13), 2008 (13), 2010 (13), 2013 (13), these (12), areas (12), current (12), scale (12), most (12), april (12), only (12), forces (12), washington (12), january (12), 2014 (12), 2007 (12), 2009 (12), 2011 (12), 2012 (12), like (11), constitutional (11), under (11), majority (11), than (11), middle (11), najaf (11), baghdad (11), between (11), september (11), kind (11), february (11), situation (11), november (11), august (11), report (10), without (10), administrative (10), politics (10), 2004 (10), state (10), spanish (10), well (10), rafidayn (10), case (10), perhaps (10), south (10), march (10), support (10), same (10), make (10), pro (10), wasit (10), general (10), security (10), reconciliation (10), war (10), control (9), small (9), through (9), whereas (9), far (9), how (9), very (9), those (9), international (9), particular (9), iraqis (9), turn 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eive consideration in the constitutional review process some of these suggestions have earlier been floated in international ngos and by figures working in the united nations system it is likely that the driving forces behind the 2005 constitution chiefly the two big kurdish parties and the supreme council for the islamic revolution in iraq sciri will feel threatened by some of the recommendations in the report on the other hand these suggestions should appeal to a large silent majority of iraqi nationalists of both shiite and sunni backgrounds as well as to regional powers worried about iraqi decentralisation spinning out of control in the current situation regionalisation and multilateralism generally come across as good ideas although the united states should not underestimate the desire of regional powers to keep them engaged mired down in iraq the proposed overtures to regional powers in turn reflect a failure of united states policy in the middle east in two areas firstly inside iraq it relates to a communications problem the isg report explicitly acknowledges this p 14 asserting that the united states is unable to talk to the most important shiite figure the grand ayatollah ali al sistani and does not talk to another important political leader muqtada al sadr this has led to sole reliance on the shiite party that best understands how to deal with washington sciri which happens to be the party with the most long standing and systematic ties to iran and which is also the author of the shiite federalism proposal that most infuriates the sunnis but sciri account only for some 23 of the deputies within the big pro shiite united iraqi alliance uia and their elevation to a pre eminent contact point reflects a failure on the part of washington to engage other partners among the shiites this has created some remarkable contradictions in us policy there was something distinctly trojan about the way in which pro iranian sciri leader abd al aziz al hakim was invited to washington for high level talks only days after a leaked memo by secretary of defence donald rumsfeld had advocated a robust strengthening of us forces along the border with iran to physically protect iraq against iranian influences the second issue that has precipitated a turn to regional powers relates to overall us policy in the region importantly the isg recognises the inter relationships between iraq and broader regional issues until there is a minimum of consistency in the us approach to democracy and human rights issues across different countries in the middle east it will remain unable to conduct an ideological foreign policy and will rely on compromises with regional states this also affects the situation in iraq where many parties are reluctant to talk to the united states precisely because they are unconvinced about washington s overall vision for the region until the us becomes more energetic in solving the arab israeli conflict chiefly by speeding up the process towards an independent palestinian state within borders approximating the pre 1967 situation and with an honourable settlement for the 1948 refugees this problem of scarcity of local pro democracy partners will remain posted in iraq and soft partition us policy in iraq leverage issues comments off on the iraq study group regionalisation not balkanisation federalism from below in iraq some historical and comparative reflections posted by reidar visser on monday 4 december 2006 14 54 paper presented to the international workshop iraq after the new government stabilisation reconstruction and the security regional scenario arranged by the landau network como italy 24 25 november 2006 reidar visser norwegian institute of international affairs the iraqi choice of federalism as a system of government is not surprising but the particular path to federalism established in the iraqi constitution is truly remarkable 1 among the 25 existing federations of the world the vast majority belong to one of two categories or to a combination of these two firstly there are evolutionary federations either polities that developed gradually from below by the amalgamation of entities that wished to federate as in switzerland or those built on imperial remnants similarly created over time but which with a single stroke were converted into federations often at independence like micronesia secondly there are designed federations political systems whose geographical make up has been decided by a small group of political elites often in closed doors forums of experts on constitutional questions and democratic theory examples include south africa and ethiopia only one existing federation has a method for implementing federalism comparable to that of the new iraq spain 2 federalism from below spain s experience the unique feature of spanish federalism as expressed in the 1978 constitution based on a precedent from the 1931 constitution of the short lived second republic is the role of the popular initiative in designing the federal map of the country in theory at least the federal entities of spain were to be crafted from below abajo arriba bottom up through initiatives at the municipal level the 1978 constitution allows contiguous provinces to amalgamate into autonomous regions provided that at least two thirds of the municipalities concerned and representing at least a majority of the population of each of the affected provinces have assented to the federalisation initiative such efforts can be launched every five years until successful on paper this resembles the mechanisms adopted in the 2005 iraqi constitution and the subsequent legislation for implementing federalism with the exception of baghdad all iraqi governorates south of kurdistan 14 altogether are free to combine into federal regions on the basis of referendums and the initiative for the referendum rests with the local governorates in that one tenth of voters or one third of governorate council members can call a plebiscite thus the thresholds for starting an autonomy initiative are markedly lower than in spain as is the moratorium on renewed attempts one year only but the principles are similar 3 however the actual experiences of spain in the crucial years of transition from 1978 to 1983 illustrate how building federalism from below can involve unexpected complications and may prove to be less of a bottom up enterprise than initially envisaged the first point concerns the danger of federal chaos and reactions from conservative forces if the federalisation process should develop in unforeseen ways in spain it had generally been expected that two or three regions with long standing autonomy demands would take steps to ensure autonomous status whereas the remainder of the country would retain a more unitary state structure in fact however several candidates for self rule suddenly materialised out of the blue members of the old establishment particularly within the military reacted negatively towards what they saw as a decentralisation process running out of control and even many democratically inclined politicians were critical of the rapid proliferation of autonomy ideas in areas where such demands had no past history 4 matters came to a head with a military coup attempt in february 1981 at that point spanish politicians decided that greater top down control was needed and they effectively took over the job of completing and sealing the country s federal map including the demarcation of the federal regions of central spain 5 a compromise on federalism was thus an integral part of the package that facilitated spain s transition to democracy in fact in the 1990s spain was able to reopen the federalism debate in a less frenzied atmosphere now with the european union as a stabilising external factor map 1 spain s pre democracy regional structure left the administrative map of modern spain right the second important aspect of the spanish experience has to do with the relatively high influence of regional administrative divisions of the past even in this setting of extreme flux and theoretical openness to change thus ten out of the twelve mainland regions that were defined by bottom up initiatives from the municipal level before the 1981 compromise on federalism had been readily identifiable as regions in the times of general franco and earlier only two of the regions established prior to 1981 cantabria and la rioja both uni provincial secessions from the larger region of old castile represented radical departures from this general picture arguably one important reason why the instability of the spanish transition could be contained was the relatively strong and unequivocal historical legacy that pointed towards a particular configuration of territorial entities federalism from below in iraq these two points offer historical lessons of relevance to iraq s current situation firstly federalisation is destined to become an extremely contentious issue in a state that emerges from a centralistic path clearly reactionary attitudes to federalism should not be allowed to block the progress of genuinely popular desire for radical decentralisation but the spanish example shows that moderation and compromise in federalism issues can be the key to a successful democratic transition even if this may mean that no group obtains exactly the state structure it was hoping for at the outset secondly the importance of strong regional historical legacies should not be underestimated whereas most of spain s federal units can refer to long experiences of administrative separateness only kurdistan and possibly the projected small scale region of the south known as iqlim al janub basra maysan and dhi qar the old ottoman vilayet of basra exhibit anything remotely comparable to this in iraq 6 kurdistan s special position on this score was recognised through the enshrinement of kurdish autonomy in the iraqi constitution a parallel to the spanish recognition of long standing self rule demands through the fast track route to autonomy in article 151 of the 1978 constitution but in the iraqi case done in classic top down style throughout the rest of iraq historically there has been unity and subordination to baghdad for long periods 7 thus some of today s schemes such as the project of a nine province region of the centre and the south iqlim al wasat wa al janub do not correspond to any substantial historical precedent 8 of course this in itself is no argument against the legitimacy of these projects modern voluntaristic federal entities may be just as successful as historical ones in spain creations like cantabria and la rioja were ridiculed for their alleged artificiality but one might also turn that logic on its head and argue that creativity may indeed be necessary to break centralist hegemonies of the past but the point about historical endurance is worth bearing in mind when it comes to dangers of political instability and it is one which the protagonists of the modern regions should heed so as to secure the safest possible transition to federalism for their citizens this is doubly important because of the extremely low thresholds for initiating and repeating referendum initiatives under the iraqi system something which makes the entire process even less predictable than was the case in spain possible problems in the new iraqi law on implementing federalism these general observations on the limits of existing models of federalism from below are relevant to analyses of the new legal framework for implementing federalism in iraq adopted on 11 october 2006 and in particular to discussions of possible complications that may arise once that law is put into practice one remarkable feature of the iraqi discussion of this legislation project is that very little of what has been said has been based on readings of the actual text adopted indeed for a long time it has been almost impossible for the general public to obtain copies of the considerably modified version of the law that was agreed on after an original draft had been introduced on 26 september 9 this in itself suggests that the public debate on the subject cannot be considered to have been truly exhaustive there are apparently several grey areas in the iraqi law on the implementation of federalism they include subjects such as the procedure for defining the referendum parameters in the case of mutually conflicting federalism visions for the same area if say some in najaf wish to become part of a three governorate middle euphrates entity whereas others favour a larger nine governorate all shiite super region here the law does not go into much detail beyond a single keyword istibyan or a governorate level poll to determine which particular alternative should be put to the test in a referendum similarly it is unclear to what extent there is any timeline for the start of the race once the law has entered into effect in april 2008 if someone in amara requests a referendum on day one is there any deadline for others to submit a challenge and thereby prompt a pre referendum poll within the governorate 10 perhaps most problematic of all is the question of how to proceed in case several incompatible autonomy initiatives are launched and successfully survive the poll pre selection process basra citizens may decide for a referendum on a uni governorate basra region residents of maysan may come out in favour of a vote on a slightly larger region of the south involving basra and dhi qar as well the people of dhi qar in turn may want to give a chance to the idea unifying all the shiite communities northwards to karbala except that the inhabitants of babel may want a referendum on a small scale middle euphrates region while those of wasit and karbala may not be enthusiastic about federalism at all and could fail to produce federal initiatives that would satisfy the minimum legal requirements perhaps the people of diyala and other areas with strong iraqi nationalist traditions might decide to take a pro active stance to the challenge of decentralisation by introducing a surprise nationalist federalist project a region of mesopotamia iqlim al rafidayn stretching all the way from basra to mosul and with the potential to put a stop to what could otherwise become an endless string of autonomy bids this is all theory and hypotheses but it is clear that a considerable mess as shown in table 1 can emerge at the poll level even before any referendum is held table 1 simulation of possible outcomes of pre referendum polls istibyans under the new iraqi law for implementing federalism governorate available alternatives see also note 11 winner of pre referendum poll or sole initiative launched basra iqlim al janub iqlim al wasat wa al janub iqlim al basra iqlim al rafidayn iqlim al basra maysan iqlim al janub iqlim al janub dhi qar iqlim al janub iqlim al wasat wa al janub iqlim al wasat wa al janub muthanna iqlim al wasat wa al janub iqlim al wasat wa al jan...
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