Kurds

Via Juan Cole

Letter from Barzani and Talabani to President Bush

04 June 2004
KurdishMedia.com
June 1, 2004

His Excellency President George W. Bush
President of the United States of America
The White House
Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. President:

[snip]


Iraq is a country of two main nationalities, Arabs and Kurds. It seems reasonable that the Arabs might get one of the top jobs (of their choice) but then the other should go to a Kurd.

We also believe the decision to use sectarian quotas for the top two jobs directly contradicts the Coalition’s repeatedly stated position that democratic Iraq’s government should not be based on ethnic or religious criteria, a position the US wrote into the Transitional Administrative Law.

So ethnic quotas are good and religious quotas are bad ? Aren't you supposed to put a paragraph or two in between two contradictory assertions ?

Sneering aside, I have to say that I agree with Barzani and Talibani and disagree with Sistani on this one. The key issue is that the TAL (interim constitution) says the final constitution will take force after a referendum in which 2/3 no votes in 3 governates constitute a veto (by coincidence there are 3 predominantly Kurdish governates). I think this is perfectly reasonable.

I don't know why Sistani objects. He wrote, in his successful effort to convince the UN security council to not endorce the TAL "This matter contravenes the laws, and most children of the Iraqi people reject it." What laws are above the constitution ? The "laws" must be Sharia, which seems to have aquired equal status with the will of the people. Uh oh.

The Kurds threaten to seceed "If the TAL is abrogated, the Kurdistan Regional Government will have no choice but to refrain from participating in the central government and its institutions, not to take part in the national elections, and to bar representatives of the central Government from Kurdistan." The last clause seems to me to justify a stronger word than Cole's "boycott".

All in all, normal high stakes politics I guess. I'd say that things are going relatively OK in Iraq so far this week.