No Constitution in Iraq? No Problem, For Now

Writing in the New Republic Larry Diamond says the delay in putting out a constitution isn't all that terrible when you consider how bad things could have gone -

It is useful to ponder what did not happen on August 15. Iraq's Transitional National Assembly did not adopt a provision (advocated by Shiite Islamist delegates) that would have forbidden legislation contradicting Islamic law. As Juan Cole has recently argued, this could have been "a Trojan horse for making Iraq into an Islamic republic," by making Islamic clerics constitutional arbiters. The Assembly did not create a super-region of the nine predominantly Shiite provinces in the oil-rich south, which would be completely unacceptable to the Sunnis (as well as to many Shiites who believe in a united Iraq). It did not yield to a Kurdish demand for the right to hold a vote on secession--a referendum that, in the foreseeable future, would probably go overwhelmingly for secession.

Neither did the Assembly majority force a constitution down the throats of unwilling minorities. The Kurdish and Shiite delegates did not tell the unelected (and only recently added) Sunni committee members to accept their offer or take a hike. The ruling Shiite alliance did not use its narrow majority to scrap the interim constitutional provisions it didn't like, particularly the one enabling any three provinces to veto the constitution in the referendum.