U.S. Model Appeals to Some Iraqi Factions

BASRA, Iraq —  During his years in exile, Baqir Yaseen often found himself on the same side as the Kurds -- trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime.

In the new Iraq, the secular Shiite leader has again found common cause with the Kurds. This time, the cause is what he calls “the United Iraqi States.”

As their deadline draws near, Iraqis drafting the country’s first constitution appear to have settled on the language for a number of contentious issues. But a major question remains: Should Iraq be a country with a strong, centralized government? Or, as Kurds and many Shiites argue, should it be developed more along American lines, with individual states having broad powers over their own affairs?

Yaseen, 64, is the leader of a nascent movement in the Shiite-dominated south calling for the creation of six Iraqi states, under one flag, sharing a currency and foreign policy but each having its own parliament and cabinet.

Whereas the Kurds have long had self-rule in the north, the southern demand for autonomy is recent. Previously limited mainly to activists such as Yaseen, the cause gained momentum Thursday when it was publicly endorsed by Abdelaziz Hakim, head of the powerful Shiite alliance that holds a majority in parliament.

Southern federalism has now become a major obstacle in the constitutional negotiations, with Shiites insisting on the same freedoms enjoyed by the Kurds -- and Sunni Arabs bitterly opposed to the idea.

Yaseen, who comes from Basra, envisions a southern state encompassing Basra, Nasiriya, and Amara -- one of half a dozen states that would roughly divide the country into a Kurdish north, a Sunni middle and a Shiite south. The southern state would contain 80% of the country’s oil reserves and be home to the only ports in the country.

Although states in the U.S. do not control revenue from natural resources, Yaseen’s plan would give individual Iraqi states some power over those resources. If his plan was realized, revenue would be shared among the states but Shiites would effectively control the majority of the country’s oil resources.

Sunni Arabs, who make up only 20% of the population but enjoyed privilege under Hussein’s strongly centralized government, are willing to accept the continuation of Kurdish autonomy but bitterly oppose extending the model.

“There must be a center, which is Baghdad, the capital of Iraq,” said Sheik Abdul Rahman Naimi, a National Assembly member and chief of the Jubur tribe in the northern city of Mosul. “I am against all these demands. I want Iraq to remain like this, its map staying like it is.”

Decentralization, he warned, is “the first step toward separating Iraq.”

Acknowledging that both Kurds and Shiites had been oppressed in the past, Naimi said: “We are in a new Iraq, with an elected government. We do not have to be afraid of each other.”

According to the timeline, the committee has until Monday to present a final draft of the constitution to the National Assembly. If it is approved, it will then be submitted to a popular vote in October. Sunnis could feasibly reject the constitution. If two-thirds of the population of any three Iraqi provinces votes against the constitution in the national referendum, it will have to be redrafted.

Yaseen argues that history is on his side. Before the U.S.-led invasion, Hussein brutally repressed the south, which was already devastated by the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Despite sitting on vast oil wealth, Basrans have for decades bitterly watched the revenue flow north while the city suffered through multiple wars and deliberate government neglect.

“The area doesn’t know anything but tanks, bombs and jet fighters,” he said. “It’s a large ruin called Basra. Streets are filled with rubbish, and diseases are rampant.”

The Americans have expressed support for some degree of federalism. The U.S.-crafted interim constitution -- which the Iraqis are using as a template -- allows for the creation of semiautonomous states.

At its heart, the constitutional debate is about ownership and the allocation of resources.

“I think in the real world the constitution counts when it touches on three things: money -- mostly how the oil money gets allocated; power -- who has the power in the center; and then federalism or regionalism -- how do you protect the minorities?” said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, speaking to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations last month. “Everything else is a little too Jeffersonian to reach Iraqi hearts and minds.”

Now, with his autonomy campaign officially on the national agenda, Yaseen and other proponents find themselves accused of undermining the fragile national unity and ushering in the end of the modern Iraqi state.

“I don’t want to divide Iraq,” he said in response to those who say decentralization would increase the danger of civil war in a country bitterly split along religious and ethnic lines. “I’ve repeated it 100 times.”

Mostly people believe whatever they want to believe, he said, telling the fable of a man named Hussein whose friend always mistakenly calls him Abbas. Again and again, it happens. One day, Hussein snaps.

“Look, Habibi, my name is Hussein. My father was Hussein. My grandfather was Hussein. I am Hussein, son of Hussein.”

The friend chews this over.

“What a strange Abbas you are,” he says.

Times staff writers Ashraf Khalil, Raheem Salman and Saif Rasheed in Baghdad and a special correspondent in Basra contributed to this report.