The United Nations (read: the United States) has removed Iraq from its obligations under Chapter VII, after it "fulfilled all its obligations" towards Kuwait, referring all unresolved issues between the two countries to Chapter VI. In other words, Baghdad is no longer threatened with sanctions and with the use of force to implement United Nations resolutions. Officials in the Iraqi government considered that the UN resolution represents a "historical step", or the end of an era and the beginning of a new one in Baghdad's relations with Kuwait, the countries of the region and the international community. Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, who praised the resolution, know perfectly well that emerging from under "Chapter I", i.e. putting an end to internal disputes, is much more important than all international resolutions and relations. They also know that the threat of secession by the Kurds, if Baghdad does not submit to their conditions, is much greater than any sanction the Security Council could impose. Zebari himself suspended his boycott of the government two weeks ago, after Baghdad and Erbil reached an agreement that put a stop to the confrontation between the "Peshmerga" and the federal army, in areas the Kurds are demanding to annex to their province. It is a province that behaves as if it were a country neighboring Iraq, not a part of its federal system under the constitution. If its relationship with the Kurds has reached such a degree of fragility, Baghdad's relationship with the western and northern governorates, i.e. Al-Anbar, Saladin and Mosul, fares no better. Demonstrators in these governorates have not left their public squares for six months, in protest against being marginalized. This has allowed armed factions to take advantage of the situation, intensify their activity, and collaborate with similar groups across the border with Syria, turning them into quarrelling "emirates" loyal to foreign powers and to the "afterlife". As for the relationship between the center and the southern governorates that were marginalized for decades in spite of their wealth, its relative stability is connected to the extent of the central government's sectarianism. They in turn are demanding to be turned into autonomous provinces, benefiting from the experience of the Kurds, and from the constitutional text that gives them such a right. Voices have been rising among Members of Parliament representing them and in their local legislatures, demanding for the law to be applied. The way the center has dealt with such demands took shape last week in a decision from parliament, granting provincial legislatures very broad powers, at the security, economic and legislative levels. It also allotted to each oil-producing governorate five dollars per barrel. In other words, it has turned them into provinces without naming them so... The Abbasid state began falling apart when the power of the governors grew and Baghdad weakened, and when the struggle over the caliphate turned into wars between the Arabs themselves on the one hand, and between the Persians and the Turks on the other. Thus, each governor began to declare his own state independent with the approval of the caliphate, which sufficed itself with preserving some of the formal aspects of their relationship, such as the image of the Caliph being minted on coins, or his name being invoked in mosques. Now, the conflict between the Arabs using sectarianism and confessionalism as a pretext. Now also, we see Turkey on one side and Iran on the other, struggling over influence in Mesopotamia. And here is the central government giving governorates (provinces) many of its powers. History repeats itself in the form of a tragedy that will not stop at the Iraqi border. Chapter VII no longer rules Iraq's international relations, and the biggest importance is given to "Chapter I".
