DRAFT OF CONSTITUTION APPROVED WITHOUT SUNNIS

IRAQ, After four postponements and the disapproval of the Sunnis, yesterday, without the vote that was supposed to follow, the constitution draft was presented and, which will be subjected to the country’s vote in October.

The move was strongly, if not utterly demanded, by the United States and the document represents an apparent understanding between Shiites and Kurds. However if only three of the 18 Iraqi provinces vote against the document " and in at least three of them the Sunni population appears to want to do just that " that the entire constitutional process will have to resume from the very beginning.

In case of a sustained opposition by Sunnis, the entire parliament will have to be re-elected bringing the “democratization” process back to before January 2005. Nevertheless, appearances must be kept, and in Washington and London, there have been some enthusiastic reactions. Indeed, in one of his ’loftier’ comments, speaking to the nation in his weekly radio address, president Bush compared the Iraqi constitutional process to those of the American founding fathers after independence. Somehow, optimism does not quite capture the spirit of that suggestion well enough”¦[AB]

MISNA.ORG