President Bush should call the Belgians to solve the Iraqi crisis

[Lorenzo]

Iraq is completely like tiny little Belgium. Don't laugh, it's true. Maybe President Bush should call his collegue PM Verhofstadt to help find a solution to the Iraqi constitutional crisis. Belgians are the world champions in writing complex constitutions for ultra-messy situations. The country could have been the Yugoslavia of Northern Europe, but due to political acrobacies of the highest skill, civil war has always nicely been avoided.

Here's how we did it:

1. Belgium has the world's most complex political system, with not less than 8 governments ruling over a tiny population of 10 million: 3 cultural communities (Flemish, Walloon, Germanophone) with their own language (Dutch, French, German) live in one country, and share a capital (Brussels) where the three languages are shared

:: Compare this to Iraq: Kurds, Sunnis and Shias all have their own language and share a capital, Baghdad.

2. We created a federal state with a Federal government which is responsible for matters of national importance; then each community has a government responsible for "socio-cultural" (or intangible) matters (education, administration, cultural policies, etc...), and a government for "territorial" matters (parts of economic policy, roads, harbors, electricity, etc...); finally, the capital has a special status with a government where the three communities collaborate.

These 8 governments all check each other, in formal combinations which might make your head go spinning:

-3 communal + 3 territorial governments checking the federal and the capital one
-3 communal + the capital government checking the others
-3 territorial governments + the federal one checking the capital one
-etc...


This would be ideal for Iraq. After all, the Mesopotamians invented mathematics so this shouldn't be too complex for them!

3. Moreover, we are the country that has seen occupation after occupation, a bit like Iraq. First the French came, then the Dutch, then the Austro-Hungarians, then the Spanish, then the Portuguese, then the French again, and the Dutch again, and finally the Germans (twice), after which everybody saw how we Belgians had reduced ourselves to focussing on beer, surrealism, chocolates and Jacques Brel, - not worth bothering any longer.

4. Belgian constitutional expert teams have been actively involved in writing the constitutions of East Timor, of the Federated States of Micronesia, of the Former Yugoslave Republics and of the new Sudan (busy doing it now.)

I don't understand why the US government doesn't use them in Iraq. They're the best out there, and it's obvious that Iraq needs a much more fine-tuned constitution.

If anyone knows how to reach the President, please tell him to call Brussels. He might need it.

[achtung_circus]

1. Canadians have managed not to have a civil war

in spite of conflicting populations (only 2). We'll provide some input, too. It's messy, but it works.

[Yupster]

2. I've been thinking lately

that one of Bill Clinton's strengths was to go to both sides and find out what was important to them and then come up with a solution that they could both live with.

I thought he would be an ideal negotiator for the Constitutional crisis they've got over there. I bet it would be too dangerous to send him though, but if I were president, I'd ask him.

[enigma000]

3. Good thinking

That was well thought out. Mind you, even to this day I believe one Canadian province has failed to sign off on the national constitution. As well, the Europeans are have some, um, concerns with their constitution.

In fairness, the EU was involved to some extent:

A group of European Union members was in Baghdad Thursday, marking the first such high-level delegation visit to the country since the ouster of dictator Saddam Hussein.

Javier Solana, the EU's top foreign policy official, and Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw met with Iraqi officials to prepare for an international conference on Iraq.

Co-sponsored by the EU and the United States, the conference will have "three main issues -- one that is related to politics in general. The second related to security, and the third related to what we may call rule of law," said Solana.

The conference will be in Brussels, Belgium, on June 22.

"I think there is no divide today between the U.S. and Europe as far as the main objectives of Iraq," said Solana, perhaps a reference to the differences between some European countries and the U.S.-led coalition during the war.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/06/09/iraq.main/


An old article authored by Bob Rae, former premier of a Canadian province

http://www.forumfed.org/federal/llviewpapers.asp#

Mr. Rae said that, in this environment of continuous violence, carnage and horror, the determination of the Iraqis to bring democracy to their country is overwhelmingly impressive. "You come away from it all with tremendous admiration for the courage of the people who are sticking at it and moving forward, going forward, and dealing with some very difficult issues.
"They are sophisticated, professional, political people who are picking up the pieces at the end of a dictatorship, and they're doing it in the most difficult of circumstances--this terrible attack on the civilian population."