Wrong Again, Professor Cole

Juan Cole argues that the extension in drafting the constitution was itself unconstitutional [here], but he's wrong in that assertion, as Christopher Allbritton points out here.

But Cole is at least partially right when he writes:

The real question isn't the constitution. The real question is actual, concrete politics. How do you keep the Kurds in without giving away the north? How do you bring the Sunni Arabs back in to ordinary politics? How do you satisfy the Shiites without implementing Islamic law as the law of the land? Those aren't even necessarily constitutional problems (Nigeria wrestles with similar issues every day, just in the framework of provincial statute). They are political ones. Resolving them requires compromises that the major political forces seem unwilling to make. It looks, in fact, like Nigeria circa 1966 (google Biafra).

Oh come now, Professor -- things aren't close to being that bad. But you are right to say that these problems have to be worked out through an extended political dialogue. The Constitution, which inevitably will be amended, simply sets the initial terms and some of the rules within which that dialogue will proceed. Have some patience. Democracy is slow, and messy, and frustrating for ideologues like yourself, but it is the only way by which an eventual accommodation can be reached with which all sides feel they can live.