The Iraqi Parliament met yesterday, in order to elect a speaker as well as two deputies, almost eight months after elections took place. According to BBC, this call to action was ordered by the Iraqi Supreme Court and is viewed as a move to present Iraqi parties with a deadline of some sort — mainly to push them to “agree on the new government.”
The session, if successful, will lay the foundations of what the Iraqi government will look like for the next few decades. But considering the day-to-day problems Iraqis are facing, just from sectarian violence alone, is it a smart move to rush the formation of the government? Just this last month, what is suspected to be synchronized bombings aimed at a majority Shia area in Baghdad killed about 63 people and injured well over 280. In a series of 10 bomb attacks, about seven neighborhoods were targeted.
The next question one should ask is exactly how representative is this so-called parliament? For example, over 50 seats in the parliament are held by Kurds. While the Kurdish population in Iraq is large, it seems as though if one were to look at Iraqi demographics, they would be over represented or too powerful. Kurds have historically been underrepresented within the region, but is this historical discrimination enough not to question their rise to power?
Is Iraq aiming for proportional representation, or just trying to do what the U.S. asks of them? Is including the Kurds in this sense supposed to just make them forget all about their ambitions to form a Kurdish nation of Kurdistan?
The Kurdish situation is merely an example; I can go on and on about Iraqi disunity, its roots and its modern day problems, however, the point remains clear: Iraq is still not ready to form any type of government because the constituents of that government are so severely divided. Any government will practically be impossible to execute. Not to mention the high potential of failure of this government due to the non-cooperation of its members.
The Sunni-Shia sectarian violence has gone on for many years now, but Iraq is a special case in which this sectarian violence has spawned to extreme hatred; people are killed every day because of the last name on their identification cards — last names that indicate you’re Sunni or Shi’a. Issues such as this, weapons, violence and so many more, must be dealt with as soon as possible and I am not entirely convinced that forming a government then dealing with these issues is the right way to go.
Thus far, Iraq holds the world record for longest time it has taken to form a government. No doubt, we have American neoconservatives to thank for this. Regardless, however, it’s safe to say that, for once, “better late than never” does not apply here.
Dina Al-Hayek is a senior political science major and a columnist for the Daily 49er.
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