Vitaliy Konev
Edward Wagner
PSCI 100-001
October 18, 2005
The US and Iraqi Constitutions
Constitution is a necessary attribute of any democratic society or state. It defines how
power is distributed within the state, and establishes main laws and rules for the country. In
order to be valid and successful, constitution has to reflect and satisfy every citizen’s
interests. Each state or country is unique and different from others. That’s why constitutions
of different countries are distinctive.
Let’s take a look at US and Iraqi Constitutions. US Constitution was ratified more that
200 year ago, but Iraqi one is still waiting for results of the referendum in order to pass. As I
mentioned earlier, each constitution has to satisfy everybody’s interests in the country. It is a
very challenging task in case of Iraq. First of all, because Iraq consists of three different
major groups of population: Kurds, Sunnis and Shias. Each group sets a priority on satisfying
their own interests first, especially Sunnis, who used to rule the country during Saddam’s
regime. All that will justify some differences between US and Iraqi Constitutions.
The first difference I want to talk about is religious aspect. US don’t have official
religion and the First Amendment states freedom of religion: “Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” On the other
hand, Iraqi Constitution declares official religion: “Islam is the official religion of the State
and it is a fundamental source of legislation.” Also, as you can see, Iraqi Constitution
connects religion and legislation. It definitely doesn’t take place in US constitution. The
reason for this difference in attitude towards religion is ethnical, racial and religious diversity
of US and relative uniformity of religion of Iraq. Islam is religion of 97% of Iraq’s
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population. While US have hundreds of religions and none of them has such a high
percentage.
The other difference I noticed is revenue distribution. In Iraqi Constitution, article 109
states that “The federal government will administer oil and gas extracted from current fields
in cooperation with the governments of the producing regions and provinces on condition that
the revenues will be distributed fairly in a manner compatible with the demographical
distribution all over the country.” There is nothing like that in US Constitution. The reason
for that is high level of freedom in American market and relative independence of economy
from government. Iraqi Constitution has such regulation, because the main source of the
wealth and revenue in the country is gas and oil. Also, from three regions of the country, just
two have oil fields. Kurds’ and Shias’ territories have oil and Sunnis’ doesn’t. So, the
Constitution had to include that part about revenue to guaranty equality of the groups and
regions of the country.
In conclusion, there aren’t two exactly the same constitutions in the World. Each one
of them represents and reflects particular interests and characteristics of the particular state or
country. So, it is not shocking that US and Iraqi Constitutions are different. Some differences
I discussed were religion and revenue distribution. Of course, those are not all differences
between two constitutions. There are many others. For example, presence of official language
and mentioning of terrorism in the Constitution. All those differences don’t make one
constitution better than other, but they make each constitution serve better for a particular
country.