The Iraqi Constitution

I've been doing some research on the status of the Iraqi Constitution. Considering the fact the election was essentially non-violent, and initial reports estimated that 76% of those voting had approved the constitution, I expected the Administration to be trumpeting a mighty success.

According to this Forbes article, two provinces have rejected the Constitution. According to election rules, if one more province rejects the Constitution, it will have failed.

According to the New York Times, the vote has been divided along sectarian lines. About 9.8 million voters, or 68% of those eligible, participated in the election, which is somewhat better than the 58% who participated in the January elections for the transitional government. I don't have our own election figures memorized, but I would guess this level of participation is better than the average American election participation.

All things considered, however, it may be too soon to claim the vote was successful. It's quite likely the Administration won't consider the election an unqualified success if the Constitution fails to pass.

So. Let's play a little game of "What IF?"

Will the passage of a constitution validate America's invasion of Iraq?

The passage of a constitution does not necessarily mean the resulting government will succeed. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that it may take as long as 10 years for a stable government to be established.

So, beyond the ratification of a Constitution, it's simply too early to tell whether the B*sh experiment in nation re-creation will be successful.

But even if the Constitution is ratified, and Iraq becomes a Middle Eastern democracy to rival Israel, that still won't justify the invasion. The best one could say is that a good end came from a bad beginning.

Remember, the rational for invading Iraq was primarily to pre-emptively strike again Saddam before he struck us. Evidence was presented which claimed Saddam was rebuilding his chemical warfare program, and was seeking to build nuclear weapons as well.

Many charts and graphs, and aerial maps with circles and arrows were presented to prove these claims. Images of mushroom clouds over New York City and Washington, DC were described.

Recent, U.S. army inspectors made it official: Saddam had no chemical warfare program. There was not an iota of evidence which confirmed he was even seeking fissible material.

At best, the "evidence" we heard in late 2002 was highly inflated. At worst, it was a pack of carefully orchestrated lies.

Is it possible for a positive outcome to come from this negative beginning? Put another way: does a negative beginning necessarily lead to a negative end?

Keep in mind that the negative beginning involved more than faulty intelligence. It also involved poor military planning. Sure, Allied forces - such as they were - defeated Hussein's army quickly enough. But the borders were not secured. Munitions depots were left unguarded. Many basic services still have not been restored (especially in remote areas).

I suspect that, given all these bad beginnings, things are likely to have a bad end. Every month that American troops remain in Iraq adds to the feeling that Americans are an occupying army, which will fuel resentment and dissatisfaction. The sectarian differerences noted in the Times article could well be the seeds of a civil war.