The Future of Iraq after U.S. Withdrawal

Some of its outlines began to appear on the political stage with respect to what became known as the regional war. Did none of us ask what was happening? Was it feverish regionalism that needed to be solved with provinces? Did they not fear the isolation of factions in their own eyes or with the Iraqi government after the decline of U.S. rule, which brought about a type of balance between parties to the extent that there came to be no trust whatsoever over the past years? American rule will be missed in the coming years.

Perhaps we are on the path to answering these questions. We ought to recognize that the American withdrawal from Iraq will have a major impact on the political balances in the country, especially if some of these balances were created over the course of the American occupation. Perhaps the weakness of cooperation between structures of the Iraqi phantom will diminish, directing the country to a new vision to government on the principle of majority rule, despite needing extraordinary constitutional amendments, especially regarding the type of regime. Should it be parliamentary or presidential? This point itself was brought up more than once in the past years on the back of the large intersections between the parliament and the government, which caused delays — sometimes many — deliberately stopping legislation on the one hand, and, more importantly, dividing the executive branch between the republican president and the prime minister. Moreover, it tried to take more power at the expense of others by any means possible.

The third important aspect is the departure from consensus and unfeasible partnership, or what may be called negative partnership. More important than any of these is the president of a government and an opposition, as is the case in all democratic countries. Everyone knows that democracy and its benefits depend on the balance of government and its opposition, and the absence of either of them means the absence of democracy in one form or another.

Returning to the question of feverish regions, which has escalated in Iraq recently, it is necessary to know its causes and the intended purpose of it. The main reason lies close to the U.S. withdrawal date, meaning the birth of a new feeling among Sunni Arabs that they may be subjected to marginalization and treated as second-class citizens, as Osama Najafi, the speaker of the Iraqi parliament, stated. On the other hand, there is feeling among the Shia Arabs that they constitute a majority and must exercise their role as the majority, whether political or sectarian.

This feeling calls for some space to reflect upon it. This is expressed, according to an announcement by the provincial council of Salahuddin, by the maintenance of administrative and economic regions. When we stop and consider it, each of the governorships of Iraq has this feature: administrative decentralization, even economic decentralization, which is evident in all provinces, not to mention the territories. Thus, the real aim is to express the concerns that began to haunt some people at the completion of the U.S. withdrawal in accordance with the timetables.

Here, we have to ask who will rule Iraq after U.S. withdrawal. The Iraqi constitution will certainly be crucial, and this is manifested clearly in the plan to establish regions; this is a very legitimate demand, and it is constitutionally acceptable. It does not contradict any constitutional provisions despite the fact that when it was passed, this resolution was deemed appropriate or inappropriate, and under any pretext. We say that the demand is legitimate and it is right for any province to say so. The final word will be the public view in the same provinces in a referendum, which will be subjected to the standards and criteria specific to the Iraqi constitution, which creates that mechanism.

Here, however, citizens are asking whether the regions now demand popular rule or political will and whether we have the right vision for territorial administration and if we’ve failed in managing the provincial councils and their development, despite the great budget surplus, which usually returns to the state treasury at the end of the fiscal year due to the inability to implement projects.

It is certainly not a popular desire because the Iraqi citizens everywhere hold a set of conditions, the most important of which is the unity of the land and people of Iraq. Evidently, many of the provinces, especially Salahuddin, Anbar, Mosul and even Diyala, voted against federalism in the constitution. Therefore, these citizens will not change their minds as easily as the politicians. We might say that the call for regionalism is purely political because it does not have enough support from the people in the provinces which were planning it, because it only represents the opinions of the politicians who expressed their fears of the American withdrawal.

Therefore we find it is necessary in the current phase, which represents the climax of the transition in Iraq, that there should be a new, better reading by Iraq’s political forces of the current reality, to bridge the gap between them and the people. It is also necessary to be realistic in dealing with each other, far from the chaos and statements of today. I believe that the country may return to the phase that we do not want to mention, and the Iraqi people already do not want to restore its tools and mechanisms because they are flatly rejected. We mean the phase of sectarian retrenchment, even if they are under new names, for they would be the same as the model that has already been rejected.