BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Iraq charter deal pressure grows

The outstanding issues from the Shia-Kurdish draft submitted on Monday included:

• federalism, and the way to form [federal] regions
• the terminology used in eradicating the influence of the former Baath regime - whether to use the term Baath party or Saddam’s Baath
• structuring of authority between the presidency, parliament and the government.

  A copy of the draft constitution circulated earlier in the week says that Iraq’s future lies in a democratic, federal, republican system - free of sectarian or racial discrimination and with a fair distribution of wealth.

  […]

  Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari has said that 151 of 153 articles have been agreed since then - including the issue of federalism.

  Sunnis have expressed concerns that allowing for federalism may lead to the creation of an autonomous Shia area in southern Iraq - like the Kurdish north but under Iran’s influence.

On balance, nothing new.

I am coming to the conclusion that the Sunnis’ objection to federalism, and specifically a Shia sector, is less about fear of the breakup of Iraq for nationalistic reasons, but rather a breakup of Iraq that would take the oil and the north and the oil in the south away, leaving the Sunnis largely oilless. Not only would they be small and oilless, they would be a small Sunni state sandwiched between two Shiite states (Southern Iraq and Iran).

As such, their general fear is not unfounded, or irrational.

However, it seems to me that the smarter thing to have done, rather than being obstructionist, would have been to have worked towards a federalism that would have better alleviated these possibilities–such as one that would not have allowed the potential for large autonomous regions, but rather a collection of smaller ones.

Further, the bottom line is that if it is in the cards (and I am not convinced that it is) that the future of Iraq is dissolution, the fact that the constitution isn’t federal in nature isn’t going to stop such a schism. Better for the Sunnis to attempt to be part of the process and therefore to fully foster true Iraqi politics, than to constantly draw attention to their own sectarian nature. Sunni leaders have been charging the Kurds and Shiites of over-emphasizing sectarian differences, but the irony is that it may be the Sunnis themselves who have made those differences the most distinct–whether it be the boycott of the elections, the fact that there is an active Sunni insurgency, or the constant difficulties with the Sunni contingent in the constitutional process.

The Sunni leader runs the risk of simply alienating (or, at least, greatly frustating) the Kurds and Shiites, which does not further the Sunni goal of firmly securing their place in the new Iraq. In other words, the Sunnis already have the onus of being associated with Saddam and the Baath Party. To take that and then pile on obstructionism isn’t helpful to their short and medium term political standing, it would seem to me.