Federalism — if it devolves political and economic power fairly — can be an effective way of institutionalizing group rights while ensuring cooperation regarding matters of common concern. Group rights are important because they allow for the preservation of identities that give added substance to the personality of individuals. The projection of culture into the political domain is therefore necessary to individual well-being. However, yoking national or other group identities to the power of the state is a dangerous thing; it makes it more likely that national chauvinism will turn citizenship into a parochially defined concept. Federalism can avoid this because in a federal system, the protection of individual rights is a common responsibility rather than a national concern.

Under certain conditions, a federal system may have been the most effective way of ensuring the long-term survival of Iraq as a multi-ethnic religiously diverse society. Saddam Hussein's brutal regime committed atrocious crimes against Iraq's Kurdish population. The least that can be done to make reparations for these crimes is to facilitate Kurdish self-determination in the north, consistent with a cooperative approach to issues of common concern in the economic and political domain. Similarly, Iraq's Shi'a population was mercilessly repressed and denied the right to communal self-expression, so the least that can be done is to establish broad cultural autonomy in the south of Iraq where the Shi'a are an overwhelming majority. None of this would necessitate the dissolution of the Iraqi state provided the country's economic resources, armed forces, foreign policy and other matters of universal concern remain under the control of the federal government.

The neo-conservative "idealists" who drove the United States to war claim this is the particular form of democratic reformation that Iraq is currently undergoing. They also claim that 'forward movement' in the political process will lead to a reduction in violence and the eventual defeat of the insurgency. These beliefs are directly contradicted both by the text of the draft constitution that was recently subject to a national referendum and the realities of daily life in Iraq.

The federalism proposed in Iraq's draft constitution sets the stage for the political division of the country. Whether military, economic or political, powers and functions not explicitly assigned to the federal government automatically become the purview of regional authorities. The regional governments can "amend the implementation of the federal law" in their areas as they see fit. With the exception of foreign relations and defense of borders, regional authorities are free to overturn constitutional guarantees, including those pertaining to human rights and democracy.

With the constitution devolving political power in this way, military force will become concentrated in the hands of the regional authorities rather than the central government, and this will no doubt be a destabilizing factor in the long-term. The constitution also lays the ground for unequal distribution of Iraq's oil resources. Although the document explicitly states that revenue from oil and gas fields currently in operation will be "distributed fairly in a manner compatible with the demographic distribution all over the country," revenue from fields that have yet to be explored will remain under the control of the regional governments since the "fair distribution" clause of the constitution does not refer to untapped oil and gas resources, and all powers not explicitly assigned to the federal government are automatically passed to the regional authorities. Since almost all of Iraq's unexplored oil resources are located in the Kurdish north and Shi'a south, the

Sunni dominated central regions are likely to suffer further economic deprivation. Rather than neutralizing the insurgency, these conditions are likely to fuel it and further exacerbate existing ethnic and religious tensions. It's also not clear that the Shi'a and Kurds will be the primary beneficiaries of the oil and gas wealth in their respective regions. The constitution encourages investment in Iraq's oil industry consistent with "market principles." In practice, this is likely to translate to the privatization of Iraq's oil industry and future exploration, and the only beneficiaries of this process are corporate and political elites, both in Iraq and abroad.

In general, political division and instability creates the opportunity for undue external influence that runs contrary to the interests of the Iraqi people. The new Iraqi constitution is a document that formalizes exactly the kind of divisions that will destabilize the country in the long-term and leave it vulnerable to interference. Citing the vote in favor of the constitution does nothing to invalidate this fact or to make a better future more likely.

Mohammed Abed ([email protected]) is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.