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The road ahead in Iraq - -

By Editorial

The Road Ahead in Iraq
Published: October 26, 2005

The results of the referendum in Iraq, finally made official yesterday, were at least modestly encouraging, with 79 percent of Iraqis voting in favor of the new constitution. There was a strong turnout among the Sunni Arab minority, which largely boycotted January's parliamentary elections and found itself damagingly underrepresented in the writing of this constitution. This time, Sunnis voted in large numbers, and overwhelmingly voted no. All three provinces with Sunni majorities voted against the constitution. But in one of these, the opposition fell short of a two-thirds majority, allowing the constitution to pass.

Sunni political leaders deserve credit for leading their community back into electoral politics. This may have no immediate effect on violence, but a strengthened Sunni voice in politics would be the most effective way to ward off full-scale civil war.

There was a time when Washington looked to the writing and approval of this constitution as a crucial milestone on the road to building a peaceful, democratic and unified Iraq that could survive without American troops. No one believes that anymore. The constitution is a deeply flawed and divisive document that does not provide a workable template for national unity. The hope lies in the willingness of Iraq's main communities to place their faith in an electoral process and in the commitment by the dominant Shiite and Kurdish parties to open the constitution to significant amendments after the next round of elections, in December.

The narrow margin of approval and the high Sunni turnout should be a spur for Shiite and Kurdish political leaders to fulfill that promise after those December elections. They can negotiate amendments that would strengthen protections for the Sunni minority and guarantee the financial and political integrity of the central government in the likely event that Kurdish and Shiite regions seek broader autonomy. They could also remove constitutional provisions that subordinate women's rights to clerical decrees.

All such changes would then have to be ratified in a new referendum conducted under the same rules as the last vote. If two-thirds of the voters in any three provinces voted no, the changes would be blocked. Those rules are meant to encourage enough compromises to make the final result acceptable to all three of Iraq's main religious and ethnic groups - the only workable basis for national unity and constitutional development.

Despite their lack of experience in bargaining and compromise, it ought to be clear to Kurds and Shiites alike that regional autonomy at the cost of an intractable civil war and the hostility of neighboring Sunni-ruled countries would not be in their best interests. It would certainly not be in the best interests of the United States, which would probably be stuck with the job of pacifying the Sunni provinces and defending the Kurdish and Shiite statelets.

Some 2,000 American soldiers have already lost their lives fighting an insurgency whose tactics grow steadily more lethal and whose support shows no signs of flagging. Iraqi political leaders cannot expect the United States to underwrite continued division and intransigence with American blood. If Washington delivers that message clearly, leaders of the highly vulnerable Kurdish population will doubtless take it to heart. Leaders of some of the more intransigent Shiite factions need to take it just as seriously. The Sunnis should renounce violence and remain in the electoral process.

The voters of Iraq have demonstrated twice that they have the courage to go to the polls in defiance of terrorism and insurgent violence. Now their leaders will have to persuade them to do more than just show up to vote for their particular communal faction. That would be the kind of step that builds a nation - one that could make all the killing and loss that has gone before mean more than just the rearrangement of pieces on a political chessboard.



    
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