Iraqi Constitution? Why the rush?

My lack of expert knowledge regarding the Iraqi constitution would normally prevent me from sharing my opinion on the subject. But this is the blogosphere, where even half-baked opinions can get a fair hearing and, if deserved, a swift rebuke. So, here goes.

We keep hearing on television that it would be a setback if the Iraqi assembly could not come to agreement on their constitution by Monday morning. This, we are told, would provide a second wind to the terrorists. But there would be positive consequences resulting from a deadlock on the Iraqi constitution.

The constitutional assembly would be dissolved and new elections for a new assembly would be held. The Sunni Arabs, who boycotted the first round of elections, would participate in larger numbers in the second round. In the long run, this might mean less Sunni cooperation with the terrorists in Iraq.

"Identity politics" was what motivated most of the Shia voters back in January. The January 30, 2005 elections were chaotic and the political culture was less developed than it is today. It is likely that many nominally Shia Arabs regret voting for the main Shia party list. Why? Because the main Shia party is in favor of a larger role for "political Islam" than are many Shia voters (especially women). Charles Krauthammer warned us over a month ago that the Iraqis needed more time to write their constitution.

This is not the time for constitution-writing. This is the time for finessing. Iraq is too fractured along sectarian lines, too socially ruined by 30 years of totalitarianism, too new to the habits of democracy to be able to record in stone the kind of great cosmic compromises that are the essence of constitutions.
Even America, which had a century of self-government before independence, needed 13 years before it could draft a workable and durable constitution. And even that one ultimately floundered (albeit, threescore and 11 years later) over the then-insoluble problem of slavery.

How many nations have been told that they must develop a constitution that will guarantee peace, prosperity and human rights for all in less than a year? And there is that issue of federalism, which I support. Bartle Breese Bull argues that Iraq is already a federal state and should remain so.

The matter of federalism is also not as simple, or as vexed, as it looks. Iraq is already a federal country, de facto and de jure. Iraqi Kurdistan is already autonomous, and the Shiite south, east and center represent 65% of the population. When push comes to shove and the time for rhetoric has passed, Iraq's Sunni leadership, such as it is, is unlikely to agree with Western critics of Iraqi democracy that a return to the centralized nightmare is practicable. For centuries under the Ottomans, Iraq existed relatively harmoniously in a federal form, with the three vilayets of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul (which was mostly composed of what is now Iraqi Kurdistan) under the loose administration of the Pashalik of Baghdad. That is how it is now, and it will not change by Monday, when the final document is due.

The major downside of delay is that it gives the opponents of Operation Iraqi Freedom something to crow about. This is no small consideration. But when adding up the pros and cons, I would rather that the Iraqis take more time to draft their constitution. Bring on a newly elected Iraqi constitutional assembly.
Update: Amir Taheri writes that the delay in Iraq is a tactical setback, a strategic gain

The postponement was a setback if only because this was the first time that the new leadership was unable to meet a political deadline it has fixed for itself. One cannot begrudge the opponents of the liberation their unique moment of jubilation.

But if this was “a major setback”, as some dons of dilatory deeds have claimed, why did Iraqi lawmakers broke into spontaneous applause after they had voted to postpone the constitutional debate? Did they know something that the serial filibusterers on Capitol Hill didn’t?

The answer is that while the postponement was a tactical setback for the Iraqi lawmakers it represented a strategic advance for the practice of democracy in the newly liberated country. The Iraqis working on the draft resisted intense pressure from all quarters, including Grand Ayatollah Ali-Muhammad Sistani, the Shiite top cleric, and the US Ambassador to Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad, to brush disagreements under the carpet and come up with “something.” They were told to set aside the contentious issues and offer the assembly the apple-tart and motherhood parts of their exercise.