For several months, the White House have hung their hats on the progress of Iraq’s constitutional drafting committee as the primary measure of success in Iraq. For reasons that aren’t clear, the president and his advisors seemed convinced that the Kurdish, Shiite and underrepresented Sunni members of the committee would successfully paper over the large gaps between their positions in time to meet the August 15 deadline.

That hasn’t happened, and it appears that if a constitution is presented to Iraqi voters for a scheduled October referendum, the process through which it gets there will have been created by the government’s leadership outside the framework provided by the interim constitution. Iraq’s parliament, which by law was to have debated the draft constitution for three days before voting on whether to send it to the public for the October referendum, has been completely marginalized.

The US has been heavily involved in the negotiations. Don Rumsfeld and Condi Rice both traveled to Iraq to put public pressure on the government before the deadline. US ambassador Zalmay Khalizad met and continues to meet with individuals and small groups involved in drafting the constitution — at one point offering his own immaculate version — and yesterday the president called one of the leading Shiite politicians, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who threw a spanner in the works by announcing his support for a federal state on the eve of the deadline, to lobby him on behalf of the Sunnis.

None of this has worked; although the shape of a federal Islamic republican theocracy has emerged from the fog, differences between the Kurdish and Shiite positions on the one hand and the Sunnis on the other have hardened, and splits between influential Shiite parties have emerged. The latter resulted in small firefights between members of one Shiite group who favor a federal Iraq and one who oppose it.

While the likelihood that negotiators will start shooting at one another seems small, so does the likelihood that a palatable draft will emerge from the negotiations. Iraq’s foreign minister provided a glimpse into the confusion surrounding the constitution when he said “Legally the draft constitution was submitted to the national assembly on August 22. Legally it is the custodian of the new text and hopefully a compromise will be reached in order to have the support of the Sunni Arabs.”

What Hoshyar Zebari sems to be saying is that the August 22 draft is the legally binding one unless it isn’t, which is the same interpretation advanced by the Parliament’s leadership with respect to the various deadlines the negotiators and parliament have not met.

While the chamber’s president, Hachim al-Hasani, said he wants the discussions to end today, there is no deadline, Taha Ali, a spokesman for al-Jaafari’s office, said today in a telephone interview. Deadlines are “less important” than reaching an agreement, al-Zubaydi said.

Al-Hassani yesterday gave leaders another “two or three days” to hold talks, though negotiators have until Oct. 1 at “the absolute latest” to vote on and approve the constitution, Bilal Ahmed, a spokesman for the assembly, said today in a telephone interview from Baghdad.

Iraqi negotiators could legally have solicited and received a six month extension on the negotiations, but were strongly and successfully discouraged by the Bush administration from doing so before the August 1 deadline. That discouragement is emblematic of an administration who not only seem at best annoyed by the complexities of the political situation in Iraq, but who remain far more invested in their own political considerations than in the well being of Iraqis.

The upshot of all this is that the White House have by force of necessity gone from the expectation that the constitution would be completed on deadline and voted out by Parliament for consideration by voters, to the hope that the process doesn’t blow up and take the country with it. And that may, finally, represent a rational approach.

Bookmark and Share

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Ask backflip blinklist BlogBookmark Bloglines BlogMarks Blogsvine BuddyMarks BUMPzee! CiteULike co.mments Connotea del.icio.us

Digg diigo DotNetKicks DropJack dzone Facebook Fark Faves Feed Me Links Friendsite folkd.com Furl Google

Hugg Jamespot Jeqq Kaboodle kirtsy linkaGoGo LinkedIn LinksMarker Ma.gnolia Mister Wong Mixx MySpace MyWeb

Netvouz Newsvine oneview OnlyWire PlugIM Propeller Reddit Rojo Segnalo Shoutwire Simpy Slashdot Sphere

Sphinn Spurl Squidoo StumbleUpon Technorati ThisNext Twitter Webride Windows Live Worlds Movies Yahoo!

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML: 

 If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

More »

Powered by Bookmarkify™