Iraqi Constitution

As I understand it, the two main unresolved issues on the Iraqi Constitution are those of Federalism and whether or not to let former Baath party members hold office in the new government. The Kurds and Shiites are in favor of having a Federalist government and of barring former Baath Party from holding office, and the Sunnis take the opposite view, except that they're okay with Kurdish independence in the North.

I had to look up "Federalism" in the dictionary, so for those, like me, who don't know what this is, a Federalist state is one that divides power between a central government and regional governments, as opposed to a government in which all of the power is in a single central authority. It's what we have here in the United States.

On the issue of whether or not to let former Baath party members hold office, I would have to side with the Sunnis. I can understand wanting to bar certain people from holding office because of crimes they may have committed under Sadaam, but it shouldn't be a blanket ban on all former Baathists.

On the issue of Federalism, I'm a little bit torn. In principle, I like pushing power down to more local authorities. This gives individuals more control of their own lives, and it allows for experimentation on laws on a smaller scale before applying them to a larger population. For the Sunnis, I would think that Federalism would be a good thing because it will allow them to have more control over areas in Iraq that are dominated by Sunnis. However, I think that the Sunnis fear that Federalism will give the Shiites, who dominate the oil rich areas of Southern Iraq, greater control over the oil wealth, which they could then withhold from the rest of the country, or use to gain more political influence.

The fact that the current constitution guarantees the principle of Federalism, but leaves the details to be worked out later, makes this even more likely. Right now the drafters of the constitution are in the lime light, which makes any blatant attempt to control the oil unlikely. But later, when the world isn't paying so much attention, smaller bills can be quietly passed which will gradually give the Shiites more and more control of the oil.

If I were the Sunnis, I would favor Federalism, but I would also require that the Constitution stipulate some principles on how wealth in the nation should be distributed equally, and how high profit regional resources such as oil should be heavily taxed to benefit the entire country, not just the region in which the resources are found. Either that or some other way of distributing the oil wealth equitably.

Maybe this already exists in the Constitution, my knowledge of it is just what I've read in the papers, or maybe there are other aspects of these issues that I don't understand. This is just my opinion based on what I've read so far.