This is certainly the biggest story of the week coming out of the
AP reports:
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi leaders failed to meet a key deadline Monday to finish a new constitution, stalling over the same fundamental issues of power-sharing — including federalism, oil wealth and Islam's impact on women — that have bedeviled the country since Saddam Hussein's ouster.
Just 20 minutes before midnight, parliament voted to give negotiators another seven days, until Aug. 22, to try to draft the charter.
Read the whole thing here.
Reaction around the world:
President Bush in a formal statement said:
"I applaud the heroic efforts of Iraqi negotiators and appreciate their work to resolve remaining issues through continued negotiation and dialogue," he said in a statement. "Their efforts are a tribute to democracy and an example that difficult problems can be solved peacefully through debate, negotiation and compromise."
Reuters reports that Condi said:
"We are witnessing democracy at work in Iraq," she told reporters. "They have achieved a lot and they have generated considerable momentum toward the completion of their constitution."
Read it here.
Actually, she makes a good point -- Democracy is a messy thing that seldom conforms to neat little categories and schedules. If a meaningful constitutional compromise is to be reached, it will have to be by the Iraqis on their own timetable and not on some schedule imposed from without. And, despite the sticking points on federalism and sharia, a great deal has been accomplished.
Bloomberg expands on her remarks:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the failure of Iraqi negotiators to meet yesterday's U.S.- imposed deadline for drafting a constitution won't imperil the Bush administration's goal of establishing a permanent government there by Dec. 31.
The Iraqis will complete the constitution and ``continue on a path to a permanent government by the end of the year,'' Rice said last night. President George W. Bush, in a statement issued after the announcement of an extension to the process, hailed the Iraqis for making ``substantial progress.''
Read it here.
AFP reports:
US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad blamed the August 8 sandstorm for Iraqi politicians missing the deadline, though the country was saved from a political crisis by just a few minutes.
"We recognize that the three days lost because of the recent sandstorm set back the schedule of deliberations,"
Read it here.
That's the official stuff. Now for the pundits:
Tomorrow's WaPo follows Condi's line:
[T]he slip in the schedule should not be viewed -- at least at this stage -- as a permanent obstacle on the road to an Oct. 15 referendum, the Dec. 15 national elections and a constitutional government beginning Dec. 31. The negotiators, finding themselves stuck on key issues, did not throw up their hands and quit the process. Instead, they requested, and received from the National Assembly, a one-week extension to produce a final draft of a permanent constitution. The alternatives to a seven-day delay would have been worse.
Read it here.
The New York Times, of course, is entirely negative.
The Iraqi political process descended toward paralysis on Monday, when leaders failed to meet the deadline for completing the new constitution and voted to give themselves another week to resolve fundamental disagreements over the future and identity of this fractious land.
Several of the leaders said the disagreements, revolving around Islam, oil and the distribution of political power, grew sharper and more numerous as the day dragged on. Some said they were pessimistic that such vast differences could be resolved at all, much less in seven days.
Read it here.
They really have erased all distinction between reportage and opinion journalism, haven't they? And they aren't even trying to project an illusion of objectivity. To accompany the story the NYT could have used, as other sources did, the happy picture of an Iraqi woman sitting in front of pro-constitution posters, but they went down another road. They chose to use a Reuters photo of Sunni protesters in Mosul. What is more the photo was artfully cropped to make it seem like a serious affair. The original photo shows that there were only about a dozen people in the street. And, to make things worse, they weren't even protesting the constitution.
Now that's objective reporting.
Newsweek, is just plain pessimistic.
The lights went out on Iraq’s constitutional process Monday night--literally. As the National Assembly met in late-night session to avert a constitutional crisis in the fledgling-new nation, there was a power failure....
“technical reasons” are threatening to take the steam out of the country’s political development, which both Iraqi and U.S. officials believe is the only way to defeat the increasingly bloody insurgent attacks against soldiers and civilians....
the stumbling blocks which make them miss the deadline are unlikely to be resolved easily....
In the face of what can only be described as a setback, Iraqi leaders and their American backers attempted to put a brave face on matters....
Etc., etc.,... Ho hum.
Read it here.
And on the Blogosphere.
Rich Galen compares the Iraqi experience with our own decade-long process of constitution-making. This is, of course, a spurious comparison, but it is popular among bloggers. Jeff Jarvis makes the same point here. It's references like these that make historians shudder.
Cernig pronounces the developments "not good."
Robert Mayer at Publius notes the stakes involved and is hopeful a compromise can be reached.
Omar and Muhammed at Iraq the Model live blogged the proceedings, but have not discussed the outcome. Their comments section, however, is very contentious and interesting.
Back to Iraq writes that the constitution itself isn't all that important to the man on the street. "Your average Iraqi is probably more interested in when the power's coming back on or if the water will run tonight."
He notes that the actual content of the constitution is less important than the fact that the process of constitution making has brought various factions together and that they are making serious attempts at compromise. What is interesting is that was written before the impasse.
Juan Cole doesn't think that the extension will matter much.
The one-week extension is clever, since it avoids the dissolution of parliament and it keeps the pressure on the various parties to agree.
It is not clear, however, what difference a week will make.
I suppose they could serially amend the interim constitution to allow further delays, but at some point this procedure will begin to look silly.
That's enough for now. Stay tuned....
This story is far from over.
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