Iraqi Government to UN: 'Don't Extend Mandate for Bush's Occupation'
Bush needs the U.N.'s cover to justify the occupation, but the only
way he can renew the expiring U.N. mandate is to cut Iraq's frail
democracy out of the process.
The United Nations Security Council, with support from the British and
American delegations, is poised to cut the Iraqi parliament out of one
of the most significant decisions the young government will make: when
foreign troops will depart. It's an ugly and unconstitutional move,
designed solely to avoid asking an Iraqi legislature for a blank check
for an endless military occupation that it's in no mood to give, and
it will make a mockery of Iraq's nascent democracy (which needs all
the legitimacy it can get).
While the Bush administration frequently invokes sunny visions of
spreading democracy and "freedom" around the world, the fact remains
that democracy is incompatible with its goals in Iraq. The biggest
headache supporters of the occupation of Iraq have to deal with is the
occupation itself. As far back as the middle of 2004, more than nine
out of 10 Iraqis said the U.S.-led forces were "occupiers," and only 2
percent called them "liberators." Things have only gone downhill since
then, and any government that represents the will of the Iraqi people
would have no choice but to demand a timetable for the withdrawal of
foreign troops. This fact poses an enormous problem, as the great
triumph of the Bush administration and its supporters has been in
their ability to convince Americans that Iraqi interests and
Washington's interests are in harmony, even when they're diametrically
opposed.
Crucial to this fiction is a U.N. mandate that confers legal cover on
the so-called "multinational" forces in Iraq. The mandate is now
coming up for renewal, and a majority of Iraqi legislators oppose its
renewal unless conditions are placed on it, conditions that may
include a timetable for the departure of American troops.
The process of renewing the mandate is highlighting the political rift
that's divided the country and fueled most of the violence that's
plagued the new state. That's the rift between nationalists -- those
Iraqis who, like most of their countrymen, oppose the presence of
foreign troops on the ground, the wholesale privatization of Iraq's
natural resources and the division of their country into ethnic and
sectarian fiefdoms, and Iraqi separatists who at least tolerate the
occupation -- if not support it -- and favor a loose
sectarian/ethnic-based federation of semiautonomous states held
together by a minimal central government in Baghdad.
In the United States, the commercial media has largely ignored this
story, focusing almost exclusively on sectarian violence and doing a
poor job giving their readers and viewers a sense of what's driving
Iraq's political crisis. An understanding of the tensions between
nationalists and separatists is necessary to appreciate the import of
parliament being cut out of the legislative process and the degree to
which doing so hurts the prospect of real political reconciliation
among Iraq's many political factions. (We've discussed this dynamic in
greater detail in an earlier article.)
The key ingredient to understand is this: The Iraqi executive branch
-- the cabinet and the presidency -- are completely controlled by
separatists (including Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and secular
politicians). But the parliament is controlled by nationalists --
nationalists from every major ethnic and sectarian group in the
country -- who enjoy a small but crucially important majority in the
only elected body in the Iraqi government.
In 2006, Maliki's office requested the renewal of the U.N. mandate
without consulting the legislature, a process that many lawmakers
maintained was a violation of Iraqi law. The problem was that Maliki
didn't have the authority to make the request under the Iraqi
constitution. Article 58, Section 4 says that the Council of
Representatives (the parliament) has to ratify "international treaties
and agreements" negotiated by the Council of Ministers (the cabinet).
Specifically, it reads: "A law shall regulate the ratification of
international treaties and agreements by a two-thirds majority of the
members of the Council of Representatives."
Prime Minister Maliki had claimed that the constitution didn't refer
to the U.N. mandate. A senior Iraqi lawmaker, speaking on condition of
anonymity, said of the assertion: "If we are asked to approve a trade
agreement concerning olive oil, should we not have the right to pass
on an agreement concerning the stationing of foreign military forces
in our national soil?"
In June, we reported that the parliament had passed a binding
resolution that would force Maliki to go to the parliament and give
Iraqi lawmakers an opportunity to block the extension of the mandate.
It was signed by the majority of the 275-seat legislature, then sent
to the president. According to the Iraqi constitution, the president
had 15 days to veto it by sending it back to the parliament; otherwise
it automatically became a ratified law. The 15 days passed without a
veto and the resolution became the law of the land in mid-June 2007.
There's More: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/67383/
Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer. Raed Jarrar is Iraq
consultant to the American Friends Service Committee.
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