While the American press initially labeled the lack of signing of the postwar constitution agreement Friday a temporary setback, the Brit papers were more alarmist:
Iraqi pact collapses as Shias pull out
From Richard Beeston in Baghdad
HOPES for a smooth transfer of power in Iraq were plunged into doubt last night after sectarian divisions scuppered the signing ceremony for the country's postwar constitution.
Five Shia Muslim members of the Iraqi Governing Council refused to sign the document at a planned ceremony in Baghdad. After hours of intensive talks, including mediation from senior US and British officials, negotiations broke up without a result. Efforts to reach an agreement will resume on Monday.
Although all of Iraq's ethnic and religious groups were confident that a deal would be reached on the interim constitution, the bickering did not bode well for the tight deadline in the months ahead. The US-led coalition plans to hand over power to an Iraqi caretaker government on July 1.
The British press (this is the Times) has a worse spin on it than the yanks.
Now follow-up this AM from Juan Cole:
az-Zaman: On Friday, five Shiite members of the Interim Governing Council suddenly pulled out of signing the Basic Law they had agreed to, with the rest of the IGC, last Monday.
A huge formal signing ceremony had been arranged, attended by hundreds of people and the press, who just kept waiting for hours and hours as the five were holed up with Ahmad Chalabi. Finally the Coalition Provisional Authority announced that nothing would happen, and everyone went home.
The whole performance was a huge embarrassment for the Bush administration, which had counted on enacting the Basic Law as a prelude to finding a way to hand sovereignty over to an Iraqi government of some description on June 30. That deadline seems increasingly shaky.
The renewed determination to have their way among the more hardline Shiite figures on the council may have been sparked by the massive bombings on Tuesday, which fell on the holiest day of the Shiite calendar. A feeling of vulnerability could well have impelled them to rethink the concessions they had made to Kurds and women.
What follows from juan Cole is a discussion regarding the 'outside forces' making agreement difficult.
Moreover, Iraq's Real Holy War suggests how the invasion has, infact inflamed the entire regoin by pitting nervous Sunnis against the newly-emboldened Shia.
The attacks brings to light a grave problem facing America: the Shiite revival in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated a Sunni militancy that in turn threatens peace and stability in a broad swath of Asia from Pakistan to Lebanon.
American authorities may well be correct that the bombings were the work of the terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Al Qaeda operatives who see sectarian violence as the means to subvert American plans for the country. However, it would be a mistake to view the anti-Shiite violence in Iraq as the work of a small group of terrorists and limited to Iraqi politics.
Hello? Is anyone really in charge? This helps stability how, exactly?
Seems like the 55% Who Say U.S. Should Finish Iraq Mission (36% Say Bring Troops Home ASAP) are in for a rude awakening. They expect we should stay until things are stable, until 'peace and demacracy" come to Iraq. Oops.