For example, in america there are 50 states and one federal government. The states can have different laws from each other and different penalties but they are all under the jurisdiction of the federal state.
What if Iraq gave the sub regions more power and the federal government less power. a few regions or cities would be allowed to practise islamic totalitarianism, while the rest that wanted to went towards a more free market democratic system all under a loose federal system and people were allowed to travel freely from one mini government to the other? Would that take some of the protest out of people in Iraq who want to turn it into a Shiite religious dictatorship by giving them an area to rule over people who voluntarily want to be ruled that way?
I don’t know how Iraq’s government is currently run, but i am assuming its one strong federal government with obedient local governments. Giving more power to local governments with the capacity for democratic change in most might release some of the pressure to turn all of Iraq into an Islamic dictatorship.
The problem with Iraq and many other countries in the Middle East (and Europe, and the rest of the world) is that the only thing holding a civil war at bay is the strong, sometimes oppressive, federal government. I think the danger of violent clashes between the different factions may be too great for a government of the type you suggested.
First post - hi - language is not my first English - apologies for potential fuzziness.
A nitpick: a single government isn’t federal, but national.
Sadly, history tells us by the example of Yugoslavia and India (prior to 1948) that internal divsions along the lines of race or religion reinforce the differences, not harmonise them. A federal Iraq, with Shiite, Sunni and Kurd partitions, will IMO encourage people to move to ‘their’ area, or others to ‘encourage’ minorities to move to ‘their’ area, where ‘their’ kind of people live. Once the ethnic and religious groups are partitioned sufficiently, the pressure to break up into separtate countries will increase. Only a Tito-like figure can keep them together.
One of the other reasons that the states of America managed to stay together was because of a mutual need and cooperation that was required to gain independence. If you split Iraq into states, none of them would want to cooperate with the other and civil war is a likely outcome, after all it happened here in the US and only the combined forces of the union managed to keep the USA intact…barely.
I’ve been saying for a while that the Federated States of Iraq would be the way to go. When you have so much variance in the population, you’d better give them a lot of regional autonomy, or you’ve got big problems.
With a federation, you could give relative autonomy to the Shi’ites in the south, the Sunnis in the center, and the Kurds in the North. Three states, with a central government to manage oil resources and other nationwide assets.
And I believe that a federation is exactly what the first Iraq congress decided on yesterday. Tentatively, of course - it’s still early in the game. But so far, that’s what they’re leaning towards.
Federalism would be the way to go - everything works best when managed at the lowest practicale leve; but splitting people according to religion? Allowing one state to practice “Islamic Fundamentalism?” No majority in Iraq wants fundamentalism. The rights of people in the US are protected by the Federal Government, which is what it’s there for, to curb excesses of the States and deal with interstate disputes. If you’re going to allow that level of autonomy within states, why bother with the Federal government bit, why not just split it into nation states?
Wow! Finally, a McDuff post with which I partially disagree! (Took you a while, dammit.)
I’m not sure that last is a given, at least for Iraq’s regional majority of Shiaa in the south (which may also be the largest plurality in Iraq, I think). I would not be surprised if in five years or less Iraq was an Islamic republic along the lines of Iran ca. 1980. --At least, part of present day Iraq, any way.
I agree that the first sentence describes the federal government in principle (if not in scope), but you might be surprised by the number of US citizens who strongly favor a substantially less powerful federal role. In any case, a Federated States of Iraq would require a far more expansive Federal government than the US has in order to preserve national identity. It’s going to be a great challenge just to get the Kurds’ cooperation in a national government to which their own is subordinate; if the nascent political powerplay of the Shiaa continues, the goal of “one Iraq” is going to be more than doubly difficult.
A devolved Federal state is likely to end in civil war.
In re the population, off the top of my head:
Single largest group with roughly 50-65% of the overall population is Shiaa Arabs. Absolute majority in the region starting just below Baghdad, there are also Sunni communities in the ‘middle region’ intermixed with Sunni Arabs.
Depending on the numbers you want to take, Sunni Arabs come next. Roughly 20-30% of the population.
Kurds, now largely Sunni as Shiite Kurds were largely expelled to Iran (will they return?): maybe 10-20% of the population.
There are also Xian (mostly Assyrian) and Turcomen (largely Sunni) minorities, the later mostly in the north, the former to my understanding heavily urbanized in the center and north. As well as a Farsi speaking minority etc.
The issue then is that while Sunni Arabs, Xian Arabs and Shiite Arabs are bound by a common pan-Arabism that makes the Middle and the South likely to stick together given the right context, the Kurds want out. Period. Obviously they are playing for time now iwth the US presence, and perhaps the threat of a Turkish intervention supported by Iran also keeps them in check.
At the same time, the Arabs are largely wedded to a centralized state, although the Shiites commenting that I have seen on various Arab langauge sources (e.g the TV stations, BBC ARabic, RFI’s service etc.) have been inclining towards a Shiite dominated Islamic state.
That is not a stable condition for a Federal solution, of course it really isn’t a stable for anything when it comes right down to it.
Why the big hang-up in keeping Iraq as a single country? I’ve often thought that the middle east, or anywhere else with serious ethnic and religious differences, would be better off separating into separate countries. Weren’t most of the borders in the middle east arbitrarily drawn up in the 1800’s by some corporal in the British Army anyway? The main objection, I suppose, is that there is danger of war between them, ala` Pakistan/India, but there seems to be plenty of turmoil anyway. And why not a state for the Kurds? Yea, I know, Turkey yada, yada, yada. But as we’ve noted before, it sucks to be a Kurd.
And while we’re at it, let’s get really serious about the Palestinian situation. Break off a huge chunk of Isreal, Lebanon and Jordan, and set up Palestine. But, every time there is a suicide bomber casualy, Isreal gets a square kilometer back. Also, make the Golan Heights and the religious parts of Jerusalem into some sort of bullshit ‘City of God’ to keep these boneheads from killing each other.
(Add this to the list of stuff that’s never gonna happen.)