Is the Iraqi Constitution Part of the Problem?

With President Bush taking to the airwaves this evening to lay out his plan for Iraq, I have been wondering if some, not all but some, of the problem in Iraq is Constitutional rather than religious?

To be sure, I think that if root causes were examined closely more than a fair amount of the Iraqi on Iraqi violence is more related to religion than politics, although in Iraq there may be no difference. But with Sunni killing Shiite and vice versa and both killing Kurds, could some of the political problem be related to the formation of the Iraqi constitution, which is parlimentary system rather than an American republic model?

One of the most interesting facets of the export of Democracies by the United States is that most of the countries in which we assist in establishing democracis, i.e. Iraq or Afghanistan, tend to result in nations with a parlimentary system. Not that parliamentary systems are a bad thing in and of themselves. They can have have worked well in Great Britain, Japan, Israel and other western democracies. But there are limits to them and one of hte limits is that there is very little for a minority to do to check the majority power other than complain.

In Iraq, instead of complaining, they kill each other.

But what if a mechanism existed by which certain actions by the majority could be checked or at least mitigated by minority parties, forcing a compromise position or a consensus position? That mechanism would have to be a federal system not unlike the United States. More specically, a federal system with more checks and balances, including a bicamerallegislature, modeled on the U.S. House and Senate.

The current Iraqi govenrment consists of a parliament from which various "executive branch" officials are drawn including the head of state, the prime minister. This set up is not objectionable, save for the inability of the minority Sunnis and Kurds, despite their sharing of parliamentary posts, to block Shiite initiatives. But if Iraq had a "Senate" comprised of members of various provinces represented in equal terms and with membership that permits a minority, such as the Sunnis, an abiilty to block the passage of laws until their concerns are addressed.

Thus, in the same way that small states in teh United States can exert power in the Senate beyond their proportion in the House, minority ethinicities could then exert power beyond their sheer numbers. Of course, this whole theory is predicated upon the idea that all sides suffer from a feeling of disenfranchisement from the political process. The issues driving the violence probably go much deeper, to the heart of fundamental philosophical and religious ideals. But if everyone had a seat at the table and an ability affect the policy outcome, might not some of the violence be curtailed?