The Fix Is In

I think that in Las Vegas, they call it stacking the deck:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 3 - Iraq's Shiite and Kurdish leaders quietly adopted new rules over the weekend that will make it virtually impossible for the constitution to fail in the upcoming national referendum, prompting Sunni Arabs and a range of independent political figures to complain that the vote was being fixed.

Some Sunni leaders who have been organizing a campaign to vote down the document said today that they might now boycott the Oct. 15 referendum, because the rule change made their efforts futile. Other political leaders also reacted angrily, saying the change would seriously damage the vote's credibility in Iraq and abroad.

Under the new rules, the constitution will fail only if two-thirds of all registered voters - rather than two-thirds of all those actually casting ballots - reject it in at least 3 of Iraq's 18 provinces.

The change, adopted during an unannounced vote in Parliament on Sunday afternoon, effectively raises the bar for those who oppose the constitution. Given that fewer than 60 percent of registered Iraqis voted in the January elections, the chances that two-thirds would both show up at the polls and vote against the document in three provinces would appear to be close to nil.

This basically means that everyone who doesn't vote is voting for the Constitution. The Shiites didn't even bother to get a two-thirds vote on this (required to change anything in the interim Constitution) because they claimed they were making a "point of clarification."

And the Americans can say they're "dismayed" by this and shrug their shoulders and claim "Iraq makes their own rules" all they want, but this is right out of the DeLay textbook of how to get things done in the US House. Change the rules, change the game, whatever it takes to get the vote passed. Monkey see, monkey do.

The truth is that this is Shiite triumphalism run amok. They sense that this is their moment to control the country the way they see fit. Of course, this will grease the wheels and slide the country even more inevitably downward toward civil war.

By the way, the Kurds could be recognizing this:

Even as the rule change angered Sunnis and some others, there were new signs of tension between the Shiite and Kurdish alliances that dominate Iraq's transitional government. Kurdish leaders threatened to withdraw from the alliance last month, and on Sunday a high-ranking Kurdish official called for the resignation of Iraq's Shiite prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafari. Leaders of the two blocs met tonight to iron out differences on a range of issues, including Kurdish demands for faster Kurdish resettlement in the contested northern city of Kirkuk.

It wasn't just a high-ranking Kurdish official, it was the President. That's what happens in parliamentary democracies right before the government collapses. I wouldn't be surprised if the Constitution fails in the Kurd-dominated areas as a result.

Juan Cole adds some context to this split:

The significance of Talabani's break with Jaafari is actually more serious than mere parliamentary politics. Talabani is a clan chieftain, as is his sometime rival, sometime ally, Massoud Barzani. The political parties, the KDP and the PUK, are wrought up with clan alliances. The Kurdish tribal chiefs are announcing a break with the Shiite tribal chiefs. The always troubled and uneasy Shiite-Kurdish alliance was the I-beam that kept the house of Iraq standing. Talabani has just taken a blow torch to the I-beam, and it is not clear whether there is anything to keep the roof from collapsing now.

[...]

What made the Kurdish-Shiite alliance possible was their common opposition to the old Baathist leadership of the Sunni Arab community. Both the Shiites and the Kurds were seeking a new role in Iraq, which would not be defined by Arab nationalism inflected with Sunnism. Both had petroleum resources in their areas. Both had had unfortunate experiences with strong central government.

But with the Baath defeated, the two no longer have a strong common foe. They are not afraid of anything. They do not need each other. And the Kurds absolutely insist on annexing Kirkuk to their Kurdistan confederacy, even though Kurds are probably not a majority there. Kirkuk is where the oil is. It is what would make the Kurdistan confederacy viable, even rich. That it has lots of Arabs and Turkmen inhabitants who don't want to be in Kurdistan is of no moment in Sulaymaniyah and Irbil (Kurdish strongholds).

If the Kurdish-Shiite alliance is over with, then I suspect so is Iraq.

Meanwhile they almost killed the oil minister today. How does the Administration respond to this series of dire reports? By going into the storage closet and trotting out the ol' "terra" boogeyman:

Some 149,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq and Vice President Dick Cheney warned against an early pullout, arguing this could make Iraq a launchpad for terrorist attacks on the United States.

"If the terrorists were to succeed, they would return Iraq to the rule of tyrants ... and use it as a staging area for ever greater attacks against America and other civilized nations," he told Marines recently back home from Iraq duty.

Like all those other terror attacks staged from Iraq. Oh wait, there weren't any.