US clout seen to weaken amid clash over Iraqi constitution
WASHINGTON -- The firestorm over the Iraqi constitution -- and whether it will be adopted over the objections of the Sunni minority -- has underscored just how little control the United States has now over the rapidly changing political events in Iraq.
''They still have great influence but they don't have meaningful control," said Anthony Cordesman, a former Defense Department analyst now at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. What power they once had to determine the outcome of negotiations, he said, is ''limited and it's diminishing."
US officials said yesterday that they are still hoping that the proposed Iraqi constitution will be amended to satisfy disgruntled Sunnis who have vowed to defeat it in an Oct. 15 referendum.
''It can and will change," said one Washington-based official closely following the developments who spoke on the condition of anonymity, pointing out that Sunnis have not yet walked away from the bargaining table.
But the Bush administration's attempts to shepherd the process have had mixed results at best. US officials pressed Iraqis to finish the constitution by Aug. 15, and hoped that the rollout would be a moment of celebration that would unify the country and highlight the political compromises made by all sides.
Instead, the debate over the constitution has polarized the country, at least in the short term, with many Shi'ites arguing for the need for their own semi-autonomous region in the oil-rich south, as the Kurds have in the north, and with many Sunnis fearing that federalism will herald the breakup of the Iraqi state.
The US government official said that one option for the administration now is to try to convince the Sunnis that they would also benefit from the new federalism in the constitution, perhaps by creating their own semi-autonomous area. Sunnis have worried that such an ethnic Sunni enclave would lack access to the oil resources in the north and south.
But he acknowledged that Americans have limited ability to shape what happens next, noting, ''We can say something . . . and then, 20 minutes later, it could go off in another direction."
The outcome of the constitutional debate will have huge consequences for the United States. For instance, if the constitution is adopted, its federalist arrangement could mean that Iraq will have powerful regional security forces and a weak national army, increasing the challenge of training and supporting Iraqi forces to enable a drawdown of US troops.
''The idea of a national army would virtually be dead," said Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East specialist for the Congressional Research Service, which provides analysis for members of Congress. ''De facto, the way federalism is likely to be implemented, which is that these three communities go their separate ways and cooperate to a limited extent . . . the idea of a national army would fall by the wayside."
Cordesman said that regional specialists already are worried that the Iraqi army is showing signs of ''Lebanonization" -- or fracturing along religious or ethnic lines as happened in Lebanon prior to that country's devastating civil war.
If the constitution is rejected outright next month, it will force Iraqis to start over from scratch and almost certainly delay any US exit.
''It would be tremendously costly to the Americans," said Daniel Serwer, vice president for peace and stability operations at the US Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan government organization. ''What's striking is how devastating it would be to the claim that things are moving ahead."
But if Iraqi Kurds and Shi'ites vote in favor of the constitution over the vociferous objections of many Sunnis, the outcome could be even worse, potentially leaving Sunnis feeling that joining the insurgency is the only way to make their voices heard, several specialists said yesterday.
For months, the Bush administration has been trying to coax Sunnis, who make up the backbone of the insurgency and held power under Saddam Hussein, to join the political process.
Last week, President Bush himself called Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a Shi'ite cleric who represents the largest voting bloc in parliament, to ask him not to alienate the Sunnis who had raised concerns about the draft. But days later, Kurds and Shi'ites presented the draft to the assembly without Sunni endorsement, and are now hoping to defeat the Sunnis who publicly reject it.
The US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-American, is working ''around the clock" to try to broker a compromise, and has tried to convince Sunnis that federalism could be good for Sunnis, according to Qubad Talabani, the representative of the Kurdistan regional government in Washington.
''There have been informal efforts to try to educate certain members of the Sunni negotiating team as to the benefits of federalism," he said. ''Local government for them, a better equitable distribution of Iraq's wealth . . . rather than have everything centralized."
But he acknowledged that Sunnis had not expressed much interest in the idea.
Yesterday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that federalism continues to be ''a topic of active debate among Iraqis, including the Sunnis," and that nothing prevented the Iraqis from opting to change the draft constitution before the October referendum to include any changes that Iraqis want to add.
McCormack underscored, as he has for the past two weeks, that this is an Iraqi process and Americans are not calling the shots.
''Ambassador Khalilzad is on the ground there, along with his team at Embassy Baghdad," McCormack said. ''We continue to remain engaged with all different Iraqi groups concerning the important political issues that are before them.
