Opinion | Editorials
Iraq needs an accord on national unity
Any break-up of the country would lead to instability and violence.
- Gulf News
- Published: 23:35 August 3, 2008
For Iraq to build a future where its people co-exist in prosperity, under the rule of law and democracy, all factions - religious, political and ethnic groups- have to come to an agreement to live together. Without an acceptable national unity formula, which brings all parties under the same umbrella, Iraq can just disintegrate.
Raising the alarm about the future of Iraq's national unity is not an exaggeration. Neither is it an overestimation that the country is under the threat of breaking up into a group of geographically independent entities. This is being said given the fact that Kurdistan has been enjoying autonomy as per its agreement with the Iraqi government.
And although such autonomy has offered independence and a level of stability and freedom for the people living there, it has also helped in drifting the region further away from the mainstream. So much so that the authority of the current government is almost non-existent anywhere in the region.
It goes without saying that achieving autonomy is at times necessary and perhaps even the best offered option to adopt when it comes to a country that is so diverse, such as Iraq. But it is also important that the unity of the nation is preserved, as any break-up of the country would lead to further instability and violence, no matter how autonomous some regions may become.
The challenge that Iraq is facing today is not by how far autonomy is enjoyed within each particular region, instead it is of enabling a country to function as one unit within a national unity framework. This could only be achieved through a process of establishing law and order, as well as the institutionalisation of the functioning of a nation state.
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