Re Ilya's comment that "Iraq might actually benefit from adopting a higher degree of decentralization than exists under the US constitution." So the next question is what, if anything, the Iraqi constitution should say about the possibility of secession. Presumably, the reason one advocates a high degree of decentralization in Iraq is because ethnic groups tend to be territorially distributed: Kurds in the north are the most dramatic example. One of the things that a high degree of decentralization does, though, is essentially to create a functioning local government that, almost by definition, gets relatively little from the central government (which, because of bicameralism and the veto, is unlikely to pass much in the way of legislation). Doesn't this increase the probability that the highly decentralized entity might decide that full self-government is desirable?
sandy
