I have my litte prognosticator's hat on with the pinned on sign with Fester's Guarantee ---
No better than random, and probably worse --- so beware as I take my guesses about the Iraqi political process in the next two months. First, the new
deal on the constitution that has the Islamic Party on board does not seem like a good deal to me --- the meet of the deal is from the WaPo:
The major concession from Tuesday's talks was agreement by the Shiites and Kurds that a committee be created early next year to consider amendments to the constitution....Any changes recommended by the committee would have to be ratified by a two-thirds vote of parliament and a national referendum.
As
Kevin Drum reacts, I agree :
"That's it? A committee will "consider" amendments? And even if they recommend some, they still won't go anywhere unless they get broad Shiite and Kurdish support in parliament followed by majority support in a referendum?
Somebody really needs to explain what the Sunnis think they're getting here. It sounds like nothing more than a vague brush off to me. Just vote for the constitution now and we promise to seriously consider your objections at a later day. Honest.
Let us assume that the Constitution passes, and the Sunni Arab and Sadrist leaning populations vote near proportionally in December. So in January the next parliament will be roughly 20-25% Sunni Arab/insurgent sympathetic, 10% Sadrists and 60-65% of the same Screw the Sunni operating majority alliance between the SCIRI/DAWA Shi'ites and the Kurdish unified front. So how do the Sunni Arabs get anything that they want under those rules and conditions? They won't get centralized control of the oil as the Kurds and non-Sadrist Shi'ites like the current arrangement as it is now. They won't get a more centralized state for the same reason, they won't get weak deBaathification as everyone will vote against them.
I really am curious as to why the Sunni Arab parties think that any promises that they can get from the current governing majority are credible given the redefinition of a voter shenanigans that occurred in the past ten days.
The interesting note is now that it is Wednesday evening or Thursday morning in Iraq, and the election is supposed to be held on Saturday morning. That gives the typical Iraqi voter between 84 and 96 hours to read the final (hopefully) document on which they are supposed to make an informed decision upon. This is not quite as bad as working in DeLay's Congress, but for something that should be the foundation of law for the next generation or two, that is not a whole lot of notice.
I am predicting that the Constitution will be ratified with overwhelming majorities in the South and the Kurdish North. I am also predicting that it will be rejected outright by 2/3rds of the voters in one province and not approved by a majority of voters in two more provinces. I would consider the political process a success if the variation in voter turnout between the lowest province and the national average is no more than 10 percentage points. The last election saw a deviation of roughly 48 points between Anbar and the national average. I don't think that this will happen although the gap will close significantly. I don't think that there will a massive surge of violence on Saturday mainly because the US is attempting to lock down all aspects of economic life as happened last January. I also don't think that the Sunni Arab insurgency will fundamentally change in its capabilities, goals, intentions and popular support within the Sunni Arab population because of escape hatched Calvinball 'political' process. Time is on their side, not the US's.
We will have another purple finger moment, and in a couple of weeks look back and see that it is not changing anything on the ground. Instead it was just another confirmation of what is happening on the ground.