Op-Eds

Oil—the Curse—Might Also be the Answer

by Jonathan Morrow
(First published by USA Today on January 18, 2006. Reprinted with permission.)

The solution for peace in Iraq is oil money, and lots of it.

At the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq is a rejection of the new, federal political order. That new order is symbolized in the new Iraq constitution, which was approved over Sunni objections in October.

Why do Sunni Arabs reject the new political order? Because they are a minority and they lose the special benefits of a centralized government that Saddam Hussein gave them. And what paid for those benefits? Oil, the commodity that Sunni Arabs, now hemmed into the petroleum-poor central provinces of Iraq, now lack. In the Sunni regions, so the story goes, there is nothing but sand.

It is for this reason that the answer to the Sunni Arab insurgency will not be found simply by giving Sunnis seats in the new parliament or in government ministries in Baghdad. That is important, but not enough.

In a country where the central government is hobbled, and where politics are increasingly local, reshuffling political leadership in Baghdad will have little effect on Iraq's rising levels of violence or the ability to withdraw U.S. troops.

The fact is that major Sunni Arab political parties do not express their core ambitions in terms of parliamentary seats or ministerial positions. Their political goals are more fundamental: They want a return to a centralized Iraq, in which they control oil revenue. It is precisely for this reason that the powerful leader of Iraq's ruling Shiite coalition, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, has said that he would block any major changes to the constitution negotiated last summer. The constitution removes much of the control of Iraq's oil from the central government and gives it to the regional governments of Iraq.

Shiites, Kurds gain

Iraq's Shiite majority is poised to create a region in Iraq's oil-rich south; in the north, the Kurds have created their own region, which also has oil. It is only the Sunni Arabs, who have no immediate plans to create their own regional government, who stand to lose out.

Or do they? Do they have no choice but to fight? Actually, they have plenty of choices. For all its faults, the constitution does not (contrary to Sunni mythology) rob anyone of oil money. Indeed, Article 110 of the constitution guarantees that oil and gas are owned by all Iraqis and provides for fair distribution of oil revenues.

Ironically, this means that Sunni Arabs, who overwhelmingly opposed the constitution in the October referendum, must now insist that the constitution is enforced. In particular, they must make sure that they get their fair share of oil money.

Even if the Shiites and Kurds manage much of the oil, they do not necessarily own it. The Sunni Arabs, under this constitution, own their fair share -- about 20%, in fact, since Sunni Arabs make up about 20% of Iraq's population. Twenty percent of Iraq's proven reserves of about 115 billion barrels of oil, and 110 trillion cubic feet of gas, is not small change; Iraq's Sunni Arabs are constitutionally entitled to more than 2% of the world's known oil reserves.

New leverage

So will Sunnis start to put a dollar figure on their demands? That remains to be seen. For all their toughness, al-Hakim, the Kurds and the new Iraqi powerbrokers realize that, sooner or later, they need to assure Sunni Arabs that the new constitutional order will be just. In particular, they know that they will need to transfer oil value to Sunni provinces. To defuse Sunni fears -- and the insurgency -- Kurds and Shiite politicians should also agree to constitutional amendments to improve the transparency of Iraq's oil sector.

If we are looking for peace in Iraq, then let the oil negotiations begin. Let the Sunni Arab leaders forget about any return to a centralized Iraq, but let them also put a robust, even aggressive, set of demands for oil revenue on the table. It may not be too late.

Over the summer, the Sunni Arab leaders were shut out of the constitution-drafting process, but their recent willingness to engage in bilateral talks with the most ardent proponents of federalism, the Kurds, is the most hopeful sign so far.

If hard-headed oil deals can be done, the only people who lose are the insurgents. Judging by their redoubled efforts to murder elected Sunni Arab negotiators, they clearly know it.

Jonathan Morrow is a legal adviser at the United States Institute of Peace, working with Iraqi leaders on the constitutional process. The views in this column are his own.

The views expressed here are not necessarily those of USIP, which does not advocate specific policy positions.