The "gentleman's agreement" between
the Shiites and the Kurds of Iraq, who were the victors in the
January 30, 2005 elections, states that political office will be
divided in the new Iraq according to confessional and ethnic
lines. The premiership, being the real decision-making job in
the new Iraq, will go to the Shiites, who compose a 60%
majority. The presidency, which is going to become largely
ceremonial in the post-Saddam order, will go to the Kurds, who
make up 3 million of Iraq's 27 million. The speaker of
Parliament, another ceremonial job, whose duties are confined to
heading and moderating parliamentary debates, will go to the
Sunnis, who dominated political life under Saddam Hussein and
feared isolation, or punishment, in the post-Saddam order.
Although they boycotted the January 2005 elections, the Sunnis
are back in the political arena, thanks to the appeasement
efforts of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who insisted that they be
part of political life in Iraq, claiming that they too suffered
from Saddam's dictatorship. This "gentleman's agreement" between
the three main groups, criticized by many Arabs as the "Lebanonization"
of Iraq, is in fact, the safest formula to guarantee proper
representation and minimize conflict between all parties in the
new Iraq that is being created. It mirrors the National Pact,
another gentleman's agreement formulated in Lebanon in 1943,
giving the presidency to the Maronites, the premiership to the
Sunnis, and the job of speaker of Parliament, to the Shiites.
The deputy prime minister and deputy speaker of parliament, for
example, are Greek Orthodox. This system guaranteed the survival
of democracy in Lebanon during two civil wars in 1958 and
1975-1990. If administered properly, it can do the same for
Iraq.
In Iraq, the gentleman's agreement
states that the presidency will go to the veteran Kurdish leader
Jalal Talbani, the premiership to the prominent Shiite
politician Dr Ibrahim al-Jaafari, and the speaker of parliament
to Hajim al-Hasani, a Sunni politician who currently holds
office as Minister of Industry under Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
He accepted the job, after much debate, on April 3, 2005. His
two deputies will be Dr Husayn al-Shahristani (Shiite), one of
the most prominent opposition leaders under Saddam, and a Arif
Tayfour, a Kurd. The parliamentary meeting that fell apart on
March 16, 2005 was because the interim-President Ghazi al-Yawer
refused to head the new assembly, demanding instead to become
one of the two vice-presidents, a job that carries more
political weight and prestige, to it than that of Speaker. The
Iraqis must read the history of Lebanon correctly in order to
administer a new Iraq on the Lebanese model of 1943. The troika
that is being created today reminds us of the troika that
emerged in 1943; the Maronite Bshara al-Khury as president, the
Sunni Riyad al-Sulh as prime minister, and the Shiite Sabri
Hamadeh, who was elected speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, in
1944. Yet, if not administered correctly, this democratic system
can back-fire on Iraq and lead to chaos just like it did in
Lebanon. In the mid-1950s, the Maronite presidency alienated the
Sunnis and Shiites of Lebanon, who were Arab nationalists, by
refusing to ally Lebanon to President Gamal Abd al-Nasser of
Egypt, the godfather of modern Arab nationalism. They demanded
the removal of the Maronite president Kamil Sham'un, and when he
refused, took up arms against him and dragged Lebanon into civil
war in 1958, inviting intervention from outside forces like
Syria, Egypt, and the United States. Tension continued to rise
between the Maronites, Sunnis, Shiites, and Druze, throughout
the 1960s, and broke loose in 1975—more or less, over the same
reasons. The Sunnis, Shiites, and Druze were allied to the
Palestinian resistance based in Lebanon, as part of their
commitments to Arab nationalism, while the Maronites were not,
claiming that Arabism, and the Palestinian Cause, were a burden
to Lebanon. On March 10, 1975, a group of Muslim politicians,
headed by the Sunni prime ministers Rashid al-Sulh and Saib
Salam, two of the finest and most popular Sunni chiefs of
Beirut, and Druze chieftain Kamal Jumblatt, who was a fervent
Arab nationalist and who had fought against Sham'un in 1958,
issued a manifesto asking for a curb in the Maronite President’s
constitutional powers. Sulh, Salam, and Jumblatt resented the
confessional establishment of Lebanon and longed for more power,
arguing that by having the upper hand, the Maronites were trying
to marginalize the Muslim role in the state's decision-making.
They further asked for more equal representation between Muslims
and Christians in the armed forces, claiming that 75% of the
military establishment were Christians. Tripoli leader Rashid
Karameh (the brother of current Prime Minister Omar Karameh)
announced that in defiance of the National Pact of 1943, he
would be running for the office of president in the upcoming
1976 elections and any Maronite wishing to nominate himself for
the premiership was welcome to do so. The quarrel, fueled by
outside parties, mushroomed, and led to the outbreak of civil
war on April 13, 1975.
History can repeat itself in Iraq.
The Kurds, like the Maronites, might at one point alienate the
Sunnis and Shiites with their policies, which are not committed
to Arab nationalism but rather, to the preservation of their
interests, power, and autonomy as a Kurdish community. Some
Iraqi Kurds, like some Lebanese Maronites in the 1970s and
1980s, have had their contacts with Israel, believing that this
would advance their communities interests, although it
alienated, and angered, the Sunnis and Shiites. What would
prevent the Sunnis or Shiites in Iraq, fifty years from now,
from rising against the Kurds just like they rose against the
Maronites in Lebanon in 1975? Can the new Iraqi leaders prevent
any regional (Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, or Saudi Arabia) or
non-Arab players (Turkey, Iran) from interfering in their
affairs today, just like Syria, Egypt, and the United States
interfered in Lebanon in the 1950s? When a constitutional
document was proposed by President Hafez al-Asad of Syria, to
Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt in 1976, demanding more
representation for the non-Maronite communities, it was turned
down as too little and too late. When asked what he wanted by
Asad, Jumblatt replied; "To get rid of the Christians who have
been on top of us for 140 years!" The Iraqis must not make the
same mistake of the Lebanese in 1943. The Kurds and the Shiites,
must not alienate the general population to a stage where they
would rise against them. The National Pact froze political power
and representation at a specific point in history, where it
happened that the Maronites were a majority in Lebanon. Today,
the Shiite Muslims are a majority in Lebanon, yet the presidency
remains with the Maronites. If put up for a popular vote,
Hizbullah Secretary-General Hasan Nasrallah would win more votes
than any Maronite politician. The gentleman's agreement in Iraq
safely assumes that the Shiites will remain a majority in Iraq.
This is a fact. Yet, the Sunnis and Kurds are likely to change
in number within the coming years. The Kurds might drop to being
outnumbered by the Sunnis (they are fairly equal today). Would
this mean that a Sunni gets to become president of Iraq? Or a
Kurd can be voted to become speaker of Parliament? The
gentleman's agreement of Iraq must adjust to shifting power
balances in the post-Saddam order, to avoid the dangers that the
National Pact of Lebanon faced in 1975.
The Kurds are antagonizing everyone
in the Iraqi political arena with their bold and ambitious
demands, armed with the interim constitution of ex-US
administrator Paul Bremer, known as the Transitional
Administration Law (TAL), which is rejected in principal by the
Grand Ayatollah of the Shiites, Ali al-Sistani, because of its
secularism. In addition to disagreeing on who the new speaker of
parliament would be, the Iraqi politicians who assembled on
March 16 argued on several other crucial points. The main
concern of the Kurds is that their autonomy be threatened if the
Shiites captured the state in Iraq. One main concern to all
parties was the role of Islam in the new constitution, with some
favoring a secular state, like the one under the Baath, and
others, mainly the clergy, insisting that Islam be made an
official religion and the source of jurisdiction. The Shiites
and Sunnis are opposed to a Kurdish demand that 25% of oil
revenues be allocated to the Kurds, that they be given a veto
power in Parliament, while arguing with them over the communal
identity of the Minister of Oil. Some want him a Shiite, others
want him a Kurd. Other debatable portfolios are defense,
interior, and finance. The Kurds are also demanding to keep
their militia, the peshmerga, in order to defend Kurdistan Iraq,
and requesting that their autonomy be extended to include Kirkuk,
a city that is an oilfield. The Kurds, who won 75 of the
275-seat Assembly, came in second in the January 2005 elections,
preceded only by the Shiites who won a slim majority of 140
seats. Giving Kirkuk to the Kurds would alienate everyone; the
Sunnis, the Shiites, and the small Turkman community located in
northern Iraq. Allowing the Kurds to keep the peshmerga would
also create problems, making it virtually impossible for the new
regime to disarm any militia. In Lebanon, for example, when the
war ended in 1990, everybody accepted that Hizbullah remain
armed because it was not using its weapons against the Lebanese
but against the Israeli occupation in South Lebanon. The
peshmerga, unlike Hizbullah, is not a resistance movement
anymore, now that the Saddam Hussein regime is down. It is the
protector of the Kurds in as much as the Mehdi Army of Muqtada
al-Sadr or the Badr Brigade of Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim are
protectors of the Shiites. Nothing justifies maintaining the
peshmerga and disarming other militias other than pure
favoritism towards the Kurds. This is not democracy, and the
Shiites and Sunnis would not accept it.
"It's time for the patient Iraqi
people to be treated with the dignity that God has given them,"
were the words of the new Speaker of Parliament, Hajim al-Hasani.
This is correct, and it can only be done by giving equal
representation to all sects and ethnic groups in the new Iraq
that is emerging. The only way to achieve that is a
Lebanon-style democracy. It is dangerous, and destructive, to
think that one group should rule Iraq in the years to come, or
have a highly favored status, either in reward for its support
in the US war against Saddam Hussein, or in compensation for
having suffered under Saddam Hussein. Kurdish demands, if
permitted to get out of hand, can have a very negative effect on
the democratic culture that is emerging, and wreck the "National
Pact" of Iraq. Everybody suffered under Saddam Hussein, Sunni,
Kurd, and Shiite, and therefore, everybody should be rewarded
equally in post-Saddam Iraq. More or less, that is what is being
done today. So far, those to show highest wisdom have been the
Shiites, who have repeated their calls for calm, democracy, and
cooperation with all in the post-Saddam order. They are seconded
by the Sunnis, who after a misguided decision to boycott the
January 2005 elections, have finally plunged themselves back
into the political system, shaking off accusations that they
were beneficiaries of Saddam Hussein's regime. Last on the list,
alas, due to their wild ambitions, are the Kurds.