The Question of Constitution and Engineering State Building

Abstract

The nature of the question related to the relationship between civil state and constitutional documents in the Arab countries in general and in modern and contemporary Iraq in particular, is of a cluster in nature from which a number of questions may branch out, including:

• Was Iraq and is still living the ‘State’ or living the dream of a ‘Civil State’?
• Were the successive Iraqi constitutions the product of a national constitutional movement, or were the constitutions expressing foreign desires?
• Were these successive constitutions issued as a result of whims and hasty decisions, or were they issued after patient transformations?
• What were the constitutional obstacles that opposed building the civil state in modern and contemporary Iraq?
• What were the constitutional changes that supported building the modern state in modern and contemporary Iraq?