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As the conflict in Iraq grinds on in a seemingly endless cycle of sectarian violence and counter violence, very little has been done, its seems, to get a permanent and lasting solution in terms of obtaining stability and personal and financial security within Iraq's population.
Elections were held throughout the country that could have provided some stability were it not for rather complicated religious, economic and even tribal demographics of the country.
The results of these elections were handled incompetently, coming complete with the settling of old scores, an externally-driven insurgency as well as interference from U.S.-led occupation forces and undisciplined and badly trained military and police forces. The end result was chaos, as was long expected by the more knowledgeable observers. As the many, no doubt good intended, overtures for peace have all come and gone and as the
While the process I am proposing is not a very difficult one, the drafting and flexible implementation of such processes could be time-consuming in terms of some of the drafting and implementation. That being the case, time and motion factors should not be relevant in relation to the process in a major way.
The proposal that I am putting here is one of a number of options, some more radical than others.
In simplified methodology, the proposal revolves around a State-Federal system with three States within a Federal Iraq. The entity of
The Federal Government would have its own Parliament with two chambers, one being a House of Representative style chamber while an Upper House representation would be on a State-by-State basis. The Federal Government would be responsible for defence, the national economy, national reconstruction and reconciliation, national infrastructure as well as the national judiciary. Entities within the Federal structure would also ensure that any benefits of the national economy would be distributed equally and fairly among the three States. The Federal Parliament should run along secular lines as to ensure fair representation.
Federal representation in the representative chamber would be one vote, one value with an equal number of seats per head of population while the House of Review would be one vote, one value with an equal representation per each State.
Each State and the National Government would, through their individual constitutions, guarantee freedom of religion, freedom of speech and the media.
Local representation would be village or city based with those entities providing basic local Government services. Elected representatives would provide the decision-making process but essentially, local Government would be run by professionals and other qualified persons on a day-to-day basis.
Given the nature of
There must also be a totally independent vehicle or organisation where those currently opposing processes must be able to be heard without being endangered or compromised. Such negotiation would automatically require a cease-fire commitment. Some of such discussions have already taken place and are still in progress. I have a few organisations in mind to be further included in such processes but once again, none must involve
The role of the military in
Once agreements as to participation is dealt with, expert advisers from all sorts of walks of life would be on hand to advise, not dictate, processes. Such people could come from anywhere in the world and may be sponsored by the Arab League, the E.U., minus the
As far as I am concerned, the
The above is just a tiny spectrum of the actual proposal that I put which, tiny as it is, gives an overall view of what could work in
Finally, the time has come for the
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