This terrific analysis of the Messopotamia is the best I've read in months. Swartz is right: the new Iraqi government not only isn't sovereign, but also shows no prospect of becoming so. I analyzed this problem myself when I wrote about the decentralized and fragmented judicial structure set up in the interim Iraqi constitution. It is almost impossible to tell how a writ would run and from who by reading the IC. But Swartz is on to a much more important angle: the government has no independent power to enforce the writs. Unless a government can create a dependence in its population on its ability to enforce its commands and the judgments that stem from them, a government has no chance at all of claiming sovereignity. The present government in Iraq cannot create that dependence and neither can the occupation forces. This is a recipe for disaster and a sure indication that my initial misgivings about the Iraqi courts were, if anything, too sanguine by half. The most troubling aspect of this situation is that if it persists it will virtually guarantee the division of the country, probably into Kurdistan and a perrenially destablized rump Iraq. A return to military dictatorship, this time of the Zia-ul-Haq variety, and continuous interference by the U.S. would be almost assured for what is left of Iraq.
Too bad, that. It will take a lot of blood to "solve" this problem.
- Tracy Lightcap
Comments