Perpetual transition

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Despite the handover of power in Iraq on Monday, it is hard to be optimistic about the country's future. Iraq is still teetering on the brink of the abyss, just as it has been since the beginning of the US-UK occupation. The new transitional government is likely to follow in the footsteps of the Interim Governing Council (IGC) and the Coalition Provisional Authority, with UN blessing.

The UN mission under Lakhdar Brahimi has sadly failed to oppose sectarian politics, despite the promises made when Brahimi first arrived in Baghdad. The UN mission, eager to accommodate the wishes of the IGC, has blessed the sectarian and ethnic division of power that the recent ministerial appointments clearly demonstrate.

The appendix to the Law for the Administration of the State has just been published. This appendix is hardly reassuring for Iraq's future, for it grants legislative power to the executive while depriving the transitional national assembly of any legislative duties -- quite a unique situation, to say the least. In its second part, the appendix states that: "the council of ministers, with the approval of the presidency, can issue decrees having the power of the law." The tasks of the national assembly, as mentioned in the third section of the appendix, are described as consultative.

To grant the executive legislative powers is to court dictatorship. This is exactly how dictatorships develop. As for Security Council resolution 1546, it was phrased to accommodate US needs. The resolution keeps security duties in the hands of the occupation -- now called multinational -- forces. Sovereignty is little more than rhetoric because the government is nothing but a reincarnation of the IGC. The latter failed and disbanded, but only after installing a Sunni president and a Shia prime minister, both with Kurdish deputies.

The cabinet is now composed of 16 Shia, 8 Sunnis, 7 Kurds and a Christian. Those members of the IGC who didn't get government appointments have become members of the Preparatory Committee for the General Conference.

As politicians were busy dividing posts among themselves, security has gotten out of hand. Over 15 people die in bombings on average every day. Figures supplied by the Iraqi Forensics Institute indicate that the number of fatalities in incidents other than explosions is now 30 times higher than before the Falluja incidents. Close to 900 people are killed every month while defending their property and life in a country where robberies and kidnapping have turned into daily events.

How can the new government, with hardly a reliable security service, hope to maintain law and order? How can the economy handle a debt of $127 billion with oil revenues not exceeding $15 billion a year? How can unemployment, now running at 40 per cent be contained? How can reconstruction continue amid violence? How can national reconciliation take place while the US refuses to integrate Sunni and Shia insurgents into political life? How can a census be conducted and elections held under the current security situation? Will the transitional phase last forever in Iraq -- a country that had nothing but transitional constitutions since 1925?