Roads to Iraq

Maliki wanted to change the constitution few days ago [although he was a member of the parliament committee that supervised the writing of the constitution]  because:

Basically, responsibility should be given to the federal government, which undertakes building and protecting the country,

Maliki felt there is no need to hide the deep differences between Baghdad and Irbil, especially after a statements made by the President of the Kurdistan region “Barzani” in Washington, expressed his readiness to host U.S. military bases in Kurdistan region if Baghdad refused to sign the security agreement with Washington.

Questioning the Constitution means:

- The relationship between the Kurds and other Iraqi political components is very close to another phase of internal conflict.

Seeing Maliki’s attempts to improve his relations with Sadrists, raises some doubts that Maliki wants to split the United Shiites Alliance into: Al-Hakim’s Supreme Council with its Kurdish Coalition alliance – and Maliki’s Dawa Party with the Sadrists alliance [other small parties, and the tribal councils] .

- Maliki is determent to strengthen the power of the central government at the expense of local (sub) administrations, while there is no real administration except the Kurdistan Regional Government, Maliki has repeatedly complained about the powers of the central government before, but this is the first time he directly referred to the constitution, callingfor new constitutional adjustments to fit his ambitions of the political, military, security and financial powers.

Both parties will use the constitution as the “only available” weapon to enforce their demands and escalates the tension.

While the Kurdish Coalition will try to use their regional rights in the constitution to resisted Maliki’s attempt to change it, Maliki will use the constitution itself as a framework allows for amendments that he wishs to obtain.

The future of the Iraqi scene will take one of these three tracks:

- The Kurdish Coalition will try a mechanism to overthrow Maliki through a no-confidence vote in the parliament. This option is nearly impossible because of the difficulty of obtaining enough votes to achieve an absolute majority in the parliament.

- Maliki will try to change the constitution. The Supreme Islamic Council has thirty seats and Kurdish coalition Fifty-three seats add to this the Islamic Union of Kurdistan five seats. In total are eighty-eight MP’s. Theoretically, no chance to stand against the amendments because the other 2/3 are about 183 seats. If we assume that every member of the parliament will have a clear position from the amendments.

- Continuing the tense situation and the deadlock until the next parliamentary election and the emergence of new political map.