Interesting Views from Iraq

I did some looking around the net for input from actual Iraqis on the Constitution issue. I want to hear many different opinions, especially from those whom it will most effect.

I found a gold mine in our very own Blogspot network called Iraq Blog Count. You'll have to search through the list of them, as many of the blogs have been inactive for awhile. However, I've now been introduced to Salam Pax and his wonderful blog.

Yesterday's post was discussing the "what ifs" of the draft constitution...as in, what if it gets ratified as is:

...And we end up with a constitution that assures all that “No law may be legislated that contravenes the essential verities of Islamic law.” And allows SCIRI and Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim to announce the formation of Shiastan without the following 2 weeks.

What happens to me then? The message I get now is that since I am not Shia and not Kurd no one gives a damn about what I think. Oh and Sunnis wouldn’t be too thrilled by the idea of having infidels like me as a citizen of Middle-iraq-istan.

I don’t know what will happen when the deadline approaches but at the moment I feel like if I am not a religious Shia or a Kurd I am supposed to be neither heard nor seen. At least religious Sunnis can say their leaders told them it was against Allah will to play along. But what happens to you if you subscribe to none of those agendas? What happens if you believe that neither religion nor ethnic background is the way you want to be identified? What about just being Iraqi?

All of the pundits and experts I've been reading and listening to have been treating the constitutional sticking points of Islamic Law and Federalism as seperate issues. In one post, Salam showed how those two issues are unshakably entwined...something that does not benefit the Sunnis or those secular Iraqis stuck between all of the factions.

Plus, his Thursday post, as well as Friday's Yahoo News, shows that not even the Shiites are united:

Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army locked horns with the Badr Brigade, the militia of the ruling Shiite religious party the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), signaling that the fight for control of a new Iraq goes beyond the conflict between Shiite, Sunni, and Kurd.

I'm starting to wonder how Iraq could even avoid a civil war at this point.