Constitution Making in Iraq

USA Today has a nice piece on the current impasse.

BAGHDAD — The process of writing a new permanent constitution for Iraq was supposed to be a means to heal division between the nation's Sunni and Shiite Arabs.

Instead, the 55-member drafting committee has become another source of tension between the two groups. The committee has prompted a fresh disagreement about representation of Iraq's Sunni minority in the country's new government.

The problem is that the Sunnis are demanding 25 members on the 55 member drafting committee to represent those who refused to participate in the elections. The Shiite leadership is unwilling to give them that much representation.

The situation is complicated by the disunity of the Sunnis.

I always knew that there are three major Sunni Arab groups,” said Wael Abdul-Latif, a Shiite lawmaker and former Cabinet minister. “But when we asked the Sunni Arabs to provide us with representatives to join the constitutional committee, 53 groups came to us.”

We hear a lot about negotiations with Sunni leaders. The problem is there is no unified Sunni leadership. Any arrangements made are binding only on one small segment of the Sunni population. Before any real settlement can be made the Sunni's have to sort out among themselves just who has authority to deal.

It is starting to look as though there will be no fall referendum because there will be no constitution to vote for. At this point it's not even clear whether there will be a drafting committee.

UPDATE:

Well, wouldn't ya know it -- no sooner do I blog on the continuing impasse than it is resolved.

AP reports:

After weeks of back-and-forth, Shiite politicians succeeded at devising a compromise to include Sunni Arabs in drafting Iraq's new constitution. The stalemate over who should be allowed to draft the constitution had threatened Iraq's political process as it was entering its final stretch, with two key nationwide votes planned for later this year – a constitutional referendum in October and a general election in December.

Read it here. [scroll down, it's buried in the middle of the story]

This is very good news. Now they can finally get down to the nuts and bolts of constructing a constitution. Let's hope they do a better job than the Europeans did.

MORE UPDATES:

The NYT has a good piece with a lot more details:

The compromise offer to Sunnis - 15 additional seats and 10 adviser positions - was made last week, but at the time it was rejected by many Sunnis, who said they wanted more seats with full voting powers. Since then, Shiite committee members offered a sweetener, saying the committee would approve the new constitution by consensus and not by vote, making the precise number of seats less important.
....

So on Tuesday night, a team of Sunni Arab negotiators met in one negotiator's house to discuss the offer. They decided, some with reservation, that it was one they must accept. Turning it down, they said, would mean permanent isolation from the political process. Today, they made their agreement public.
....

In many ways, today's agreement marked a new political beginning for Sunni Arabs, who make up about a fifth of this country's population. The Sunni Arabs had grown increasingly isolated in recent months since a majority of them refused to vote in national elections in January. Shiites, who account for about 60 percent of all Iraqis, swept to power in those elections and Sunni Arabs, the former ruling class, have chafed under that new rule.

Read it here.

AND THERE'S THIS:

Rich Lowry, who apparently made the same mistake I did, writes on NRO's Corner blog:

Here's an administration official on the deal in Iraq: “The media is never going to get this, but this is just the way the Iraqis operate. They take it up to the brink, then they strike a deal. They are used to making bargains. They push, push, push, then they compromise. It was the pattern with the governing council, with the transitional administrative law (TAL), with the interim government, with the transitional government after the election. Now that they have the committee settled, they can get to writing the constitution, and if they base their work on the TAL, they should be in good shape.”

Let us sincerely hope so.

Read it here.