Amir Taheri on Constitution Making in Iraq

Much has been written and said in the US media about the “failure” of the constitutional process in Iraq. Amir Taheri, writing for the Assyrian International News Agency, has a more optimistic take.

He writes:

Is the decision by the Iraqi National Assembly (parliament) to postpone for a week its scheduled debate on a new draft constitution "a major setback" for the newly liberated nation, a or just a bump on the road to democratization?

There is no doubt that many who are nostalgic for the days of Saddam Hussein had been hoping and praying that the 15 August deadline would not be met. These are people who want Iraq to fail so that they could prove that George W Bush and Tony Blair were wrong in toppling the Ba'athist regime in Baghdad.

The postponement was a setback if only because this was the first time that the new leadership was unable to meet a political deadline it has fixed for itself. One cannot begrudge the opponents of the liberation their unique moment of jubilation.

But if this was "a major setback", as some dons of dilatory deeds have claimed, why did Iraqi lawmakers broke into spontaneous applause after they had voted to postpone the constitutional debate? Did they know something that the serial filibusterers on Capitol Hill didn't?

The answer is that while the postponement was a tactical setback for the Iraqi lawmakers it represented a strategic advance for the practice of democracy in the newly liberated country. The Iraqis working on the draft resisted intense pressure from all quarters, including Grand Ayatollah Ali-Muhammad Sistani, the Shiite top cleric, and the US Ambassador to Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad, to brush disagreements under the carpet and come up with "something." They were told to set aside the contentious issues and offer the assembly the apple-tart and motherhood parts of their exercise.

But the drafters understood that the goal of the exercise could not be making everybody happy for a brief moment. They understood that the object of democracy is not to make everyone happy on every issue every time. In fact, the opposite is often the case if only because democratic decisions based on compromise as they are bound to be, never fully satisfy anyone. What matters in democracy is that everyone should feel happy about the way decisions are arrived at.

As far as the way decisions are made is concerned, the overwhelming majority of Iraqis are happy. They know that the days when a mustachioed despot could impose any constitution on them are gone, hopefully for good. They also know that no single group can impose its will on all others. More importantly, they know that if they ignore the wishes of the people they wouldn't be able to look their neighbors in the face.

The complexity facing the drafters is staggering.

Iraq's "founding fathers"…, represent a complex mosaic of ethnic, religious, and linguistic communities. The whole thing is further complicated by the fact that five rival political coalitions, representing some 60 different political parties- from the Communists to the Islamists and passing by secularists and monarchists- are involved in the writing of the constitution.

But dealing with this complexity is in itself a magnificent opportunity.

[T]he debate over the new constitution was widened to involve virtually all Iraqis. Over 300 constitutional conferences were held throughout the country, enabling some 50,000 people to express the views of countless trade unions, cultural associations, women's organizations, human rights groups, guilds, tribal leaderships and religious fraternities. An even broader debate took place through the newly-born private media, including 150 newspapers, dozens of talk-radio stations and half a dozen television channels.

Thus the exercise went far beyond a political task assigned to a committee and developed into a nationwide course in politics, human rights, civic duties, and public ethics. Many Iraqis discovered the complexity of their society for the first time.

The western media has ignored this massive exercise in learning democracy by doing it, focusing almost obsessively on the incidence of terrorism and the “exit strategy” for American troops. But these, he insists, are mere tactical considerations.

The terrorists will continue killing the Iraqis with or without a constitution but are ultimately doomed to defeat. The departure of the foreign troops is equally inevitable, although it could be speeded up through the Iraqi political process.

Far more important is the fact that,

The constitutional debate has turned Iraq into a giant school for democracy. A nation that had been terrorized into silence for more than half a century is beginning to learn to talk, to debate and to engage in polemics. People, who never thought anyone would bother about their views, or whether they could have any views of their own, are now beginning to discover the power that they could have as individuals and groups in a democracy. The new political elite is learning the art of negotiation, diversion and, yes, even filibustering. In Iraq today the past is fighting the future. The future is sure to win.

These are wise words. Democracy is a messy business and it takes time, and understandably people get impatient, but in the long term it is the path to victory. Unfortunately, many in the West don't see it that way and their impatience might lead to a withdrawal of support and doom the great democratic enterprise.