We Just May Have a Constitution

Initial results suggest that the Iraqi constitution has received enough "yes" votes that it will have passed once all the votes are counted. It appears that the Sunni Arabs may not have been able to muster enough "no" votes in enough provinces to veto the constitution, which as I understand it was the only obstacle to its passage.

I don't really have anything against the Iraqi constitution, although it may well have bad or dangerous provisions, I haven't really read it nor analyzed the bits I have read with any detail. So I'm definitely not going to rain on the parade of the Iraqi who voted for it by condemning the results of the elections, or by bemoaning the results as guaranteeing Sunni Arab resistance, as does Juan Cole.

The fact of the matter is that I see Sunni Arab guerilla warfare as inevitable and civil war as near-inevitable regardless of what happens with the constitution, so I don't see the acceptance of the constitution as necessarily any worse than its rejection. I freely admit that I have no idea which outcome would actually be more helpful/less harmful to the goal of a stable Iraq. I just know that I doubt a stable Iraq will occur whatever happens. Either way, someone was going to feel cheated, and I doubt that the losers would stand back and say "we lost, fair and square." Of course, Sunni Arabs who feel cheated would probably attack in a more conspicuous way than would the Shiites and Kurds, as the latter could use the government and police forces to carry out revenge, whereas the Sunni Arabs would be limited to the much less covert insurgency. As it is, it seems that the Sunni Arabs are the losers, so I expect that most of the anger over the election results will be expressed through the insurgency.

My actual attitude toward the constitution is that I feel it to be irrelevant; while we have been told that the passage of the constitution would represent a great victory over the terrorists, I see no reason to believe that the political process is going to resolve the tensions between the different groups in Iraq. Put another way, I am more interested in what our military strategy is; how we plan to defeat the insurgents and how we plan for security to be provided, e.g. how to develop indigenous security forces. I am just not convinced that the existence of a document outlining basic rights is going to actually give the Iraqi an epiphany where they decide that they want liberal democracy.

Lawrence Auster has been criticizing Bush for focusing on the political process rather than trying to actually defeat the insurgents. I think my feelings generally echo his on this issue.

That is all.