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FLAWED REFERENDUM WILL MORPH IRAQ INTO REGIONAL BLACK HOLE.

"Democracy is not alone a form of state and of administration. It is a philosophy of life and an outlook on the world. The authority of the state and its law is derived from general agreement among citizens upon the main postulates of philosophy of life". President Masaryk.

US franchised 'Landmark’ towards democracy brings Iraq to precipice's brink.

Ten days after allegations of widespread fraud, Iraq's Election Commission on the 24th of October declared that the referendum had ratified the Constitution as, in the third province of Nineveh, out of 18 provinces, only 55% voted against it. If it had been 2/3rds, the Constitution would have collapsed. In the two other Sunni majority provinces more than 2/3rds voted against it. Some 9.8 million Iraqis or 63% of registered voters cast ballots. About 60% had turned out for 30 January vote, which was boycotted by most Sunni Arabs. The referendum on the Constitution was 78.59% in favor and 21.41% against. In the capitals of the US and the UK, unlike other earlier" landmarks", there were little celebrations as Iraq moved relentlessly towards an open civil war and morphing into a black hole of political violence for the whole region.

In spite of US claims of a major step in Iraq's democratic reforms, with election for a full-term parliament now slated for December 15, many even in the West rightly fear that a large turnout by Sunni Arabs attempting to defeat it and their resulting failure will only enrage many and fuel their support for the country's raging Sunni-led resistance. "Results of the referendum have indicated the degree of political polarization in Iraq,'' admitted the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq but it also praised Iraqis for turning out to vote. "This poses an ongoing challenge for all Iraqis and underscores the importance of an inclusive national dialogue.'' In the crucial Nineveh province (capital city Mosul) out of 718,758  voters, 55.08 % voted against the constitution while 44.92 % voted for it. Apart from these 3 Sunni dominated provinces, in the volatile Kirkuk ie Tamin province, 37.09% out of 542,688 and in Diyala 48.73%  out of 476,980 and in Baghdad 22.30 % out of 2,120,615 also voted against it. In Kirkuk, which the Kurds may make the capital of its region and later of an independent state, demographic changes were carried out by the Kurds, against which even Turkey has frequently protested.

It is noteworthy that in Baghdad over 450,000 voted against the Constitution. It is not only Sunnis who view with extreme suspicion the results but also the Shias of the Sadr Movement. Sunni leader Salih Mutlak complained that the tallying in Ninevah was done by Peshmerga militiamen who, he said, had tampered with the ballots. He insisted that the vote in Ninevah was in fact 2/3rd against, and that the constitution had really failed. Mutlak said that the Sunni Arabs would  now boycott the December 15 parliamentary elections. "A constitution should be a bargain and a compromise among the major factions in a nation. If a single bloc like the Sunni Arabs of Iraq rejects the constitution, then it isn't really a constitution."

Such razor thin approval for the foundation of the country's political structure, with such marked polarization is anything but a general agreement among citizens on how to rule themselves. It is a sure recipe for continued violence, which became even more virulent following the vote.

According to a poll commissioned by the Ministry of Defence and conducted in August by an Iraqi university research team, 65%  of Iraqis believe attacks on U.S. and British troops are justified, 82% of those polled said they were "strongly opposed" to the presence of the foreign troops. Less than 1 percent believed that the forces were responsible for any improvement in security. The occupation is seen as a blatant 21st century attempt by Anglo-Saxons to colonize Iraq for its oil resources and control the region. US claims of promoting democracy - as in Afghanistan - are farcical. Instead, in the wake of stunning attacks on 9/11 on USA and 7/7 London bombings, both these "pillars of democracy" are regressing into police states with curbs on freedoms.

While Farid Ayar, of  the Electoral Commission claimed that the audit turned up no significant fraud, Saleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni Arab member of the drafting committee called the referendum "a farce" and accused government forces of stealing ballot boxes to reduce the percentage of "no" votes in several mostly Sunni-Arab provinces. "The people were shocked to find out that their vote is worthless because of the major fraud that takes place in Iraq," he said on Al-Arabiya TV.

Adnan al-Dulaimi, a spokesman for the General Conference for the People of Iraq, a largely Sunni coalition of politicians and tribal leaders, said the audit took so long that it left many Sunnis suspicious of possible fraud and manipulation. But he said his group "will work to educate Iraqis and get them to participate in the December election."

Adnan al-Dulaimi,spokesman for the General Conference for the People of Iraq

The international community remembers well that in 2000 George W. Bush was elected on black and Hispanic votes against him not counted in Florida, where his brother was the Governor. Then the final result was decided by a partisan Supreme Court, bringing under a cloud the fair name of USA's judicial system. Even former President Jimmy Carter, who monitors elections all around the world, felt embarrassed by the 2000 irregularities.

During the ten day audit, the western propaganda media machine was suddenly silent on the much hyped referendum. It turned its attention to the misery of earthquake victims in Pakistan and Kashmir, but forgot the post Katrina misery and problems among Blacks and Latinos. Then it did a trial by media of illegally toppled Saddam Hussein, but he gave a most robust performance in the US organized Kangaroo Court in, where else, the most well guarded place on earth, the Green Zone in Baghdad, where under cover of secrecy sovereignty was also transferred to US quislings.

The US Pro-Consul is Afghan born, naturalized Zalmay Khalilzad, former US Ambassador to Kabul and current ambassador in Baghdad organized the writing of the Constitution. During the negotiations, Reuters described Khalilzad's as a "ubiquitous presence". According to the Washington Post, Khalilzad and his team of American Embassy officials "helped type up the draft and translate changes from English to Arabic. Khalilzad constantly tampered with the redaction."

"Many people in Iraq have not even seen a copy of the draft constitution. And it went through so many published drafts no one really knows what still stands. The "official", UN-printed final draft - 5 million copies of which started to be distributed less than two weeks before the vote - is already history. Not to mention that a mid-September UN internal confidential report suggests the constitution is a recipe for the breakup of Iraq."

The agenda for the political process in Iraq has to fit with US objectives and problems, sometimes internal. Now to show at least the appearance of a swift consensus between Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds, much that was contentious in the Constitution was stripped away. Thus many of the provisions giving specific details of the state's key institutions or laying down the procedures for implementing the principles the constitution proclaims, were either never formulated or, if formulated, are absent from the final version. "The Iraqi constitution is probably unique among such documents in that it became shorter and shorter in the process of being written, becoming almost a  bikini." The constitution gives the Kurds and the Shia much of what they wanted and the Sunnis very little of what they deserved.

"The constitution Iraqis voted on this month resembles a colour-by-numbers book, with the shapes broadly outlined but the all-important colours left to be filled in later. Representatives will have to agree, for instance, on the nature and even the powers of the federal Supreme Court, the judicial council and the commission for human rights. They will have to decide what exactly is meant by Islam being "a basic source" for legislation, and they will have to rule on whether the Arab provinces of Iraq will have the option of combining into regions, an option which is already entrenched in the constitution for the Kurds. They will have to accommodate the right to amend the constitution, inserted to reassure the Sunnis and encourage them to vote in December. But it is hardly likely to do either if it is seen as a dead letter. All this under the pressure of the continuing insurgency and in the context of an increased emphasis on ethnic and sectarian differences that the constitutional process, as driven by the Americans, has done much to deepen."

History Prof Mark LeVine at the University of California, who viewed it from the perspective of the Middle East's recent history, said that it "will likely neither end the insurgency nor bring the country closer to significant democratic development."

"The original draft of the Constitution did set important benchmarks for democracy and personal freedom for Iraqis. It even concludes with a statement on environmental protection that Americans should envy. But these advances are overshadowed by what the Constitution left out. Specifically, there are no references to three issues that are of primary concern to most Arabs, and especially Sunni Iraqis: A prohibition on the long-term presence of foreign--read American--troops in the country, a firm statement emphasizing Iraqi control of production and distribution of the country's oil resources, and a commitment to rebuilding the social infrastructure that was devastated by the invasion and subsequent wholesale privatization of the country's economy under US auspices.

"For most every Arab Iraqi the withdrawal of all American and other foreign troops is the sine qua non for ending the insurgency. That the constitutional negotiators couldn't include any prohibition of foreign troops, or deal straightforwardly with the other two core issues, demonstrates the continuing and largely deleterious power of the US in the country's internal affairs.