The final deadline for Iraq’s transitional government to agree a draft constitution passed without agreement. It will now go directly to the electorate on 15 October. Jeremy Dewar argues the constitution is a pro-imperialist stitch-up and for what is needed in Iraq – a working class alternative

George Bush’s attempt to get agreement on a constitution between Sunni and Shi’a factions is Iraq ended in breakdown Leading Sunni representative, Soha Allawi, said, “We will campaign among Sunnis and Shi’as to reject the constitution which has elements that will lead to the break-up of Iraq and civil war”. Meanwhile his Shi’a opposite number, Jalal al-Din Sagheer, rejoined, “The only possible change now is that the Sunnis become federalist.”

George Bush, from the safety of his Texas ranch gave the Sunnis an ultimatum: “The Sunnis have a choice: do they want to live in a society that is free or do they want to live in violence?”

Having rejected “freedom” in the form of the constitution Bush is preparing more violence. He is boosting American troop numbers in Iraq from 138,000 to 160,000, replacing the battle-torn National Guard (42 killed in the first three weeks of August alone) with the infamous 101st Airborne Division.

US forces have resumed the besieging and bombing cities in central and western Iraq. Reports from Tel Affar, a sprawling city of 500,000, say that the US has bombed schools and hospitals, and that the people, who have not already fled are too scared to venture out. Just as Fallujah was razed to the ground in preparation for democracy US-style last November, so now other cities are being softened up for the vote on the constitution.

These attacks follow a pattern. Last June in Operation Spear 1,000 marines, backed up by fighter-bombers, attacked al-Qaem and Karbila. Then the insurgents started openly recruiting, running basic social services, even collecting taxes in nearby Haditha, Heet and Ramadi. The UK and US switched their forces to attack the insurgents there. Within weeks, al-Qaem and Karbila were back under resistance control.

The tactics of the resistance have been effective. Marines have been killed in the province of Anbar at the rate of one a day in August. Constant US losses - helping turn the American public against the war - continue to demoralise the occupation forces.

Back in July, US general George Casey predicted a substantial reduction in US troops by summer 2006. Of course, he did not mean total withdrawal. After all, the US is building 14 military bases, including its biggest overseas facility, and four airfields in Iraq.

Now General Peter Schoomaker estimates troop levels of 100,000 will remain in Iraq for at least four more years.

Contrary to pro-occupation reports the country’s slide to inter-communal civil war -is far from inevitable, though attempts by the puppet government to force through the federal constitution with imperialist support make such an outcome more likely.

Salam al-Maliki, the transport minister closely linked to Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shi’a leader, has become the first government minister to publicly condemn US troops He said : “corruption, terror . . . and occupation are taking their daily toll on the life of Iraqi citizens.” The US, he added, had divided power in Iraq along religious, ethnic and sectarian lines and “this division has been a factor leading to its destruction.”

So, what has changed in the past month? Sunni representatives, along with those closest, to al-Sadr, have refused to accept assurances that the draft constitution will not lead to Iraq’s eventual break-up.

Western commentators have reported the disagreement over the constitution as Sunni Arabs not wanting to give up their power and privileges, of Shi’a and Kurds being united against them. They have not bothered to scratch the surface.

Ninety-eight percent of all Sunnis had no power or privilege under Saddam. They were brutally oppressed. Why is there so much inter-marriage between the two main Muslim sects, why do many tribes have Sunni and Sh’ia strands within them, if the Sunni have been lording over the Sh’ia for 30-odd years?

Nor is it true that most Sh’ia want federalism. Far from Moqtada al-Sadr being an isolated maverick, it is al-Sistani’s Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) and the Dawa party that have become converts to federalism, threatened by US officials and bribed by the prospect of a share in the oil wealth. On 27 August at least 100,000 Shi’a from the impoverished slums of Sadr City responded to Moqtada al-Sadr’s call to demonstrate against the constitution. In central Iraq, and especially poor areas like Sadr City, federalism is seen for what it is: a trick to cheat most Iraqis out of the oil and give it to the American and European oil companies.

Even the Kurds are not getting what they want. The draft constitution does not guarantee the right to secession for any of the country’s ethnic groups. Article 107 states: “Federal authorities should preserve Iraq’s unity, security, independence and sovereignty and its democratic federal system.”

The constitution is no step forward for the oppressed people of Iraqi Kurdistan. First, their democratic right to self-determination is again to be denied, not least because this would incur the wrath of US ally and Kurdish oppressor, Turkey. Second, their autonomous status will, in practice, be dependent on an unprincipled alliance with US imperialism. This is a trap, which the Kurdish nationalist leaders have willingly fashioned. The alliance will last only so long as Kurdish oil reserves serve US and British interests.

Kurdish workers and farmers must break from their leaders and seek an alliance with the anti-imperialist Iraqi resistance if they are to achieve real self-determination. The occupation’s defeat is actually a pre-condition for any national group in Iraq attaining freedom.

Similarly, the Iraqi resistance is playing into the occupiers’ hands if it fails to give clear support to the Kurdish right to independence. By showing that Kurdish workers and peasants have nothing to fear and everything to gain from joining the anti-imperialist struggle, it can remove one of the supports in Iraq for the US/UK-led occupation.

Federalism is a classic piece of “divide and rule” politics, and based on similar constitutional settlements that have been foisted on Bosnia and Northern Ireland in recent years.

By treating Sunni and Shi’a Arabs, and the Kurds as three separate political entities, the occupation forces can constantly play off one against the other, while remaining the ultimate arbiter, controlling the outcome in each dispute.

Meanwhile, the most corrupt and reactionary forces within each community - like the Badr brigades, who tortured and killed thousands of Iraqi soldiers when they fought alongside Iran in the 1990-98 Gulf war, and the Kurdish Peshmerga militia - become the official armed forces of whole regions. Federalism is thus a bulwark against the emergence of any revolutionary working class, or even radical nationalist, politics.

Workers, youth and women of Iraq must completely reject this swindle.

For a revolutionary workers’ party

Many still support the constitution, however flawed. The only alternative, they say, is the imposition of sharia (Islamic) law, undemocratic rule by militia and a civil war. They point to towns like Haditha, where sharia law is imposed, to argue that the armed resistance will never support women’s rights or the separation of mosque from state.

But this simply shows that the working class has not yet come to the head of the resistance to the occupation. Despite huge obstacles – unemployment running at 70 per cent, privatisation of large parts of the economy, privileges for yellow pro-imperialist unions like the IFTU – the working class has begun to organise real unions and oppose the occupation. The Iraqi working class must take the opportunity to rise to the head of the resistance and form its own party, using its methods of struggle.

Against the fake constitution, it needs to fight for the convening of a constituent assembly, independent of the occupiers and their allies in the Iraqi state forces. Everyone over 15 years old should have the right to vote for assembly delegates and to recall and replace those delegates, should they fail to represent the views of their constituents.

Such an assembly should work out a national plan for the reconstruction of the country, through establishing social ownership and working class control of the oil industry, infrastructure and banks. All contracts signed under previous regimes should be annulled and privatised enterprises nationalised with no compensation. Full democratic rights should be granted to women and gays, to Shia, Sunni and Christian, to Arab, Kurd, Turkman and Assyrian.

A campaign for such an assembly should start now. The danger, otherwise, is that people vote for the constitution, seeing no alternative, or reject it leading to another round of fake US-controlled elections in December. In the longer term sectarian civil war, led by reactionary clerical forces in a grab for the oil, remains a real possibility.

Unions, like the General Union of Oil Employees, which have already achieved much in the fight for wages and against privatisation, need to enter the field of politics. The workers’ economic demands can only be secured today in Iraq through a political struggle for power.

The general strike to oust the government and the workers’ militia to expel the occupiers and impose revolutionary order are key tactics in the next stage of the struggle. The stakes are high. Either the imperialists control the oil, with a new local ruling class under its thumb, or the Iraqi working class will. There is no third way.

• Down with the fake constitution!
• For a revolutionary constituent assembly!
• Troops out now! Victory to the Iraqi resistance!

Women’s rights and religion

US concerns for democratic rights are cosmetic, as is revealed by its promotion of the constitution’s Article 2:

2.1. Islam is a main source for legislation.

a. No law may contradict Islamic standards.

b. No law may contradict democratic standards.

c. No law may contradict the essential rights and freedoms mentioned in this constitution.

Liberal commentators and some women’s rights activists in Iraq have made much of the fact that this waters down Islam’s role from “the main source” to “a main source” and that there is a guarantee that at least 25 per cent of the parliament’s deputies would be women. But this is mere window-dressing; on the streets, the constitution, if established, will be an enormous blow to Iraqi women.

In July, it was reported that the British army stood by while the reactionary Badr brigade, loyal to al-Sistani’s Sciri and closely linked to the Iraqi police and army, marched onto the Basra university campus and assaulted women not dressed according to their repressive code.

In Baghdad, more women have taken to wearing the veil, not from religious conviction, but because going uncovered makes them a target for rapists, or round ups by the Badr brigade on the charge of not being “honourable”, for which the punishment can be death. The resistance could tap a rich well of support among Iraqi women if it unequivocally stood for the complete separation of the mosque and state.

Most Iraqis want to keep their newly found freedom to worship, evident in the huge numbers rallying to the holy sites on religious holidays, most recently on 31 August in northern Baghdad.

But the tragedy that unfolded that day, when rumours of a Sunni suicide bomber led to panic and the deaths of 1,000 pilgrims, underlines the dangers when religious divisions become the basis for establishing political power, economic wealth and social privileges.

Only a secular state that enshrines equal rights for all religions and privileges for none can remove such dangers.