Now the fun in Iraq truly begins. The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) has achieved its goal of passing legislation allowing the formation of an autonomous Shi’ite mini-state in Iraq’s south — and Sunni political leaders and Sadr-aligned Shi’a are not happy:
The passage of the bill has deepened feelings among some Sunni Arabs that their voices are being ignored in the political process, where Shiite parties dominate the government and parliament.
The vote on the law Wednesday was marred by a boycott by the Sunni bloc of lawmakers, along with several Shiite parties, who also reject some specifics of the bill.
The boycott delayed the vote for several hours as supporters tried to convince the boycotters to attend and scrambled to make quorum — 138 of the 275 lawmakers. The session was closed to the public, and after repeated counts it was announced that 140 lawmakers were in attendance. The measure was passed unanimously by a show of hands, with no count of the vote.
One of the main Sunni parties, however, accused the Shiites of fudging the numbers, saying quorum had not been reached.
“The session was confused and turbulent. They claimed they met the quorum but they did not. There were no more than 126 lawmakers,” said Mohammed al-Daimi, spokesman for the National Dialogue Council.
The issue here is that no true considerations were made to calm Sunni fears, or answer any number of political and security challenges that loose federalism will create (for a list of those potential challenges, check out my previous post on the matter.) In short, oil wealth sharing remains a murky policy issue, which may increase tensions in and around Kirkuk unless some sort of legislation is passed to address Sunni concerns. Kirkuk is the only potential source of Sunni oil wealth, but the Kurds hold the city and will not be willing to give up vital resources that they believe are rightfully their’s.
As far as the Sadrists, the point of contention is that they will be marginalized in the political sphere. An independent southern Shi’ite autonomous zone will be controlled by the SCIRI and policed by its militia. Under the central government, Sadr’s alliance with the Da’wa party affords him a good deal of leverage and that leverage may well now disappear. Increased violence and mounting tensions between Sadr’s Mahdi Army and the SCIRI’s Badr Brigades are now guaranteed, with Iraq’s civilians caught in the middle as always. The political channel that Ayatollah Ali Sistani opened to al-Sadr during the original Najaf uprising is quickly closing, and that does not bode well for the security situation throughout the country.
So, the forecast for Iraq now? More violence in the north, more violence in the south, and the potential collapse of the central government in Baghdad. After all, if such important legislation can be passed under questionable circumstances — the Shi’a (specifically the SCIRI members) are so power hungry that they are seemingly rigging quorom calls — then how representative, let alone effective, is the central government to begin with? At the very least Sadr will have difficulty installing vilayat-al-fiqh , or Islamic rule by clerics, if the Baghdad government predictably implodes. And that’s damn bad for being the only upside currently.
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