With all the interest in Mideast government, politics and military significance I have wondered for some time why Iraq is rarely mentioned. America spent tons of lives and money waging war there, including that famous Green zone, the US military compound, one of the most heavily protected places anywhere. But over time for reasons never discussed, Iraq seems to have faded into obscurity. Why is that?
When I asked AI about that this is what I found...
- Legislative Branch: The Council of Representatives is the primary legislative body, consisting of 329 members elected every four years. A second chamber, the Federation Council, is constitutionally mandated but has not yet been fully established.
- Executive Branch:
- President: Serves as the Head of State and is elected by a two-thirds majority of parliament. The role is largely ceremonial but symbolizes the sovereignty and unity of the state.
- Prime Minister: The Head of Government and Commander-in-Chief. The President tasks the nominee from the largest parliamentary bloc to form a cabinet, which must then receive a vote of confidence from parliament.
- Judicial Branch: An independent branch comprising the Higher Judicial Council, the Federal Supreme Court, and the Court of Cassation.
- Prime Minister: Always a Shia Muslim.
- President: Always a Kurd.
- Speaker of Parliament: Always a Sunni Muslim.
- Federalism: Iraq is divided into 19 governorates. The Kurdistan Region is the only semi-autonomous region recognized under the constitution, with its own parliament, president, and security forces (Peshmerga).
- Local Administration: Governorates have broad autonomy, though recent years have seen increased central government efforts to manage regional resources, particularly oil.
- Ethno-Sectarian Division of Top Offices: By unwritten convention, the country's three highest leadership roles are always allocated as follows:
- Prime Minister: A Shia Muslim.
- President: A Kurd.
- Speaker of Parliament: A Sunni Muslim.
- Points-Based Distribution: Parties earn "points" based on their performance in parliamentary elections. These points are then used as political capital to "buy" or negotiate for control of specific government ministries and thousands of senior civil service positions, known as "special grades".
- Vertical Patronage: Each party typically treats the ministries it controls as "spoils" of war. They use ministry budgets and payrolls to hire loyalists and provide jobs for their own sectarian or party constituents, rather than appointing individuals based on merit.
- Systemic Corruption: Because ministries are divided among competing parties, there is little centralized accountability. Parties often collude to protect each other from corruption investigations to maintain the overall system.
- Institutional Weakness: The focus on sectarian quotas over professional qualifications has led to a bloated and inefficient civil service, often staffed by "ghost workers" who receive salaries without actually performing duties.
- Public Alienation: Massive protest movements, such as the Tishreen Movement in 2019, have explicitly called for the abolition of the muhasasa in favor of a "state of citizens" (mawatana) based on national identity rather than sect.
My own interest in the politics of the region began nearly a year and a half ago when I came across the word consociational in a post about Lebanon. I thought it was a typo, but learned upon investigation that it is descriptive of a hybrid strain of representative democracy which institutionalizes the interests of selected minority interests in the form of protected parliamentary seats. It seems to be a built-in safeguard against tyranny of the majority, but at the same time places a kind of cog in the gears that can hamper progress. I'm not a political scientist, but my instinct is that consociationalism is similar to the old county-unit system of the South which allowed rural interests to dominate rural interests in state legislatures until the "one man, one vote" principle was finally implemented by the courts.
This is all I care to write about Iraq this morning because I need to better formulate my thinking before going on.
I can't help comparing the governments of Lebanon and Iraq, wondering if both might be post-colonial divide-and-conquer models for how powerful countries control minority populations in other countries until over time they are subsumed into concentrations of power, thereby subjugating recalcitrant minorities into submission.
That appears to be what is happening in Syria.
And all of these places -- Lebanon, Iraq and now Syria -- are case studies in how Israel has grown into a huge country beginning with a very small piece of acreage at the Mediterranean end of Palestine.
