The Basics of the New Iraqi Constitution

United Press International ^ | 28 April 2003 | John Armor (Congressman Billybob)

[Publius6961]

It took the United States less than a year to write its first constitution. But that constitution, called the Articles of Confederation, failed utterly within eleven years for political and economic reasons. That failure led five states to call the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. In turn, that Convention drafted the Constitution which, as amended, has remained in place longer than any other constitution ever written for any other nation in history.

The US provided in those events another critical example for those who will write the new Iraqi constitution. They should pay attention to the failure of the first American constitution.

There is no room for constitutional failure in Iraq. Its first effort must be successful. It does not have the luxury of a second chance or more, as the US and most other nations have had. If the first Iraqi constitution fails, Turkey's influence will reach in from the north, Syria's from the west, and Iran's from the east. Iraq will then have a tripartite dictatorship to replace the single one from Hussein. The historical example here is Lebanon.

Well, Congressman Billybob, now you went and did it.
I agreed with all you wrote until I got to that last paragraph.

Then I realized that you left a few things out.
I don't think it was crummy editing.

The first US Constitution was written in a year and failed.
The second one which did not fail took how long?
Louder.... I can't hear you.

That's right 4 years!
And that was amomg states and people who had been "talking about it" for 15 years!.
And on top of all that, and after all that time, they had to cobble together the last bit of an afterthought called the "Bill of Rights"..

Now then, I ask you... You say two years for Iraq to do it is not unreasonable? It would be a fripping miracle!
You think?

From the time Cornwallis surrendered in 1781 to the start of the ratification process for the new Constitution in the US was 10 years.

Anybody who will not avoid looking at reality in Iraq must conclude that some sort of rule of law must be imposed by an outside party while the various tribes, factions and Saddam wannabes sort themselves out.
And I agree absolutely that if the theocracy has a role in the process all bets are off. The only remaining question then is just how long it will be before they get their next deserved butt-kicking.

[snopercod]

Now then, I ask you... You say two years for Iraq to do it is not unreasonable? It would be a fripping miracle!

I heard on Fox that the US is advertising 30 days!

[Congressman Billybob]

You're mixing up your time frames. The Articles of Confederation lasted for 11 years, until 1787. Their failure, however, was clear a few years prior to that -- Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts, the federal bankruptcy which had our ambassadors begging high interest loans from foreign countries at 20% interest.

The whole process of writing the Constitution took a year and a half. First came the Annapolis Convention of 1786. Only five states attended, less than a quorum. It issued the invitation for all states to meet in Philadelphia. It first raised the subject of scrapping the Articles and writing a whole new constitution. A year later in May the Constitutional Convention started in Philadelphia. By the end of the summer it was written.

The ratification process (which is not part of the drafting process) took a year, though Rhode Island and North Carolina -- the hold-out states -- did not ratify for another year. So, the writing of the US Constitution was rather quick, though the Framers had years to think about what went wrong with the Articles.

John / Billybob

[Congressman Billybob]

Aristotle first wrote about a "constitutional republic" some years prior to 322 B.C. It was not until 1789 A.D. that the first durable constitutional republic was established under a written constitution. Under Billbears' approach, all the failures over all the millenia since Aristotle died should have persuaded the human race to give up on the idea.

Iraq should have a constitutional republic, for the sake of its own people and for the sake of the world. History teaches that is possible. History also teaches what to avoid in the attempt to achieve that.

If the Iraqi Framers are wise, and read their history, I think they will borrow about 50% from our Constitution, and the other 50% from the few other successful constitutional republics in the world today. In short, I expect them to borrow far less from us than we borrowed from the British. But their existing culture and traditions are more divergent from us than we were from the British.

My article specifically states that the Iraqis need to learn from failures as well as successes, including the initial failure of the Articles in the US. Did you miss that reference?

John / Billybob

[Cyber Liberty]

Let me know what you think.

Why?

[Congressman Billybob]

When the United States became "truly free," we adopted most elements of the British legal system in setting up our system. When France became "truly free" a decade later, they through out all aspects of their former legal and political system and started from scratch.

Our system survived to date, longer than any other constitution ever written by human beings. The First French Republic destroyed itself within a decade. Anyone or any nation which interprets being "truly free" as "do whatever you want and ignore prior examples" is in deep trouble.

John / Billybob

[dirtboy]

marked for later reading

[sheltonmac]

"My article specifically states that the Iraqis need to learn from failures as well as successes, including the initial failure of the Articles in the US. Did you miss that reference?"

No, I didn't miss it, but you cannot compare Iraq to post-WWII Japan. It's apples and oranges. While I agree that "history provides solid answers," it would be to our benefit to look at the history of the Middle East, not the history of a different nation in a different region with a different culture. When it comes to nation-building in the Middle East, the odds are stacked against us.

[billbears]

It was not until 1789 A.D. that the first durable constitutional republic was established under a written constitution. Under Billbears' approach, all the failures over all the millenia since Aristotle died should have persuaded the human race to give up on the idea.

And in its form lasted approxiamately 70 years before it was overthrown as intended by the Founding Fathers. I didn't we should give up on the idea, but I do think before we start spreading Constitutional Republics, which is a far cry from Bush's 'spreading democracy', I think we should fix ours before we start telling other nations how their governments should work.

Of course, if we were to fix our form of government, we wouldn't be telling other nations how to live because the neocon policy of expansion wouldn't exist either

[Taxman]

I, too, will be interested to see if/how many papers pick this article up.

Thanks for directing my attention to "the late, great historian, Georges Santayana."

My CRS syndrome kicked in just as I remembered the paraphrase, and my Google search was a bit lame, I am aFRaid.

What this country needs is a good nickle anti-CRS pill!

[TaxRelief]

The important thing to remember is that the oil is a resource and that Iraq is "tribal". The incentive to rape that resource to enrich one's own tribe will destroy the collective sense of a "public good" that is necessary to make a Western democracy work and the public utilization of a natural resource like oil work.

I can see where you might think that but again, the real issue is establishing the rule of law, and specifically well defined property rights. Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto does an excellent job of explaining the relationship between property rights and a sustainable economy that will lead to prosperty:

"As a result, we are now beginning to realize that you cannot carry out macroeconomic reforms on sand. Capitalism requires the bedrock of the rule of law, beginning with that of property. This is because the property system is much more than ownership: it is in fact the hidden architecture that organizes the market economy in every Western nation. What the property system accomplishes is so central to capitalism that developed nations have come to take its success for granted; indeed even most property experts are unsure about the connections between property systems and the creation of capital. Yet these connections exist. Without them, buildings and land cannot be used to guarantee credit or contracts. Ownership of businesses cannot be divided and represented in shares that investors can buy. In fact, without property law, capital itself -the instrument that allows people to leverage their assets and their transactions- is impossible to create: the instruments that store and transfer value, such as shares of corporate stock, patent rights, promissory notes, bills of exchange, bonds, etc., are all determined by the architecture of legal relationships with which a property system is built. And the problem is that 80 percent of the population of developing and former communist nations do not have legal property rights over their assets, whether it be homes, businesses or intellectual creations."

If you haven't had a chance yet to read "The Mystery of Capital", give it a shot. It's a great book.

[Question_Assumptions]

I can see where you might think that but again, the real issue is establishing the rule of law, and specifically well defined property rights. Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto does an excellent job of explaining the relationship between property rights and a sustainable economy that will lead to prosperty:

Conceptually, I agree with you. The problem I see lies in determining who the oil belongs to, since it is a natural resource and any question of who owns the land that the oil lies under or which ethnic group is entitles to which oil containing region has been so muddled by years of nationalization and Saddam's rule that I don't think it will be possible to assign ownership to the oil until the rule of law and property rights have been established for some time and tribalism has faded (if possible). The goal of the provision that I mentioned was to ensure that no tribal group uses a position of power to steal the oil resources for its own exclusive use by making it a national resource where any benefits are distributed equitably nationally. If you've got a better way to keep Iraq from turning into the typical Third World kleptocracy, that could be better. I simply don't want to see Iraq go down the same road that so many Third World tribal democracies have gone.

Thanks for the reading recommendation. I'll add it to my wish list.

[Congressman Billybob]

This article has been picked up by papers across the country including in today's (Tuesday) Washington Times. I just hope that parlays into a media appearance or two so I can flay the skin off a couple of "experts" who have it all wrong.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, now up on UPI and FR, "All-American Arrogance"

Latest book(let), "to Restore Trust in America."

[livius]

Good suggestions, CongBB. TaxRelief is right, though, it needs to have a significant "individual liberties" component.

I read an excellent analysis by Mary Anastasia O'Grady in which she stated that many of the problems of Latin America result from the fact that LatAm constitutions are based on a 19th century European liberal model in which the rights of the State take priority. The US Constitution is, on the other hand, based on 18th century thought, in which the rights of the individual take priority.

She felt that the tendency of Latin American countries to adopt a kind of statism, regardless of whether they were left-wing or right-wing in their political make up, was the result of this flaw in their constitutions.

I thought it was an excellent observation, and I think any new Constitution for Iraq should do two things: 1. Guarantee the rights of the individual; and 2. Structure the government of the State. That's essentially what ours does.

Part of it is a fundamental statement of principles, and then the rest of it is the administrative structure put in place to guarantee these principles.

[Taxman]

Excellent! Did you send it to Chuck Muth?

[Mark Hamilton]

Billbears;

Some of the detail in your history is unlike any I have read, at least in my reference works, nor, for that matter, in a few of the far left books I have on the CIA. Would you mind referenceing this historical info? In particular:

1) The threat to use nuclear weapons in Lebanon.(In what context was that ? Against Lebanese army? Didn't the PM of Lebanon actually encourage the intervention to preserve his own rule ?)

2) The reference for the secret plans to invade Iraq AND, more importantly, the role of those plans NOT as a contigency, but as an active plan UNTIL Soviet counter threats derailed it (that seems unlikely given Soviet impotence at the time, in this region).

3) Kurdish rebels were supported in 1960 ? What was the failed attempt against Quassim (by Baathists?) and what was the U.S. role?

4) In 1963, the U.S. supported the coup...what does that mean? I.E. the U.S. favored the coup ? What else ? What backing ? After the coup, the U.S. handed over a list ? That's it ?

5) Tacit support for the initial attack in 1980? How was that established ?