An analysis in this morning's
Los Angeles Times describes how Bush's insistence on a constitution, any constitution, by an artifical deadline has made an already impossible situation even worse.
Deep divisions in Iraq over the country's draft constitution carry seeds that could destroy the Bush administration's beleaguered strategy for turning the strife-torn country into a unified and stable democracy....
"I see developments on the constitutional side as potentially disastrous," said Larry Diamond, a scholar at Stanford University and former senior advisor in the defunct Coalition Provisional Authority. "I think the Bush administration has miscalculated profoundly by trying to get this constitution done by Aug. 15 at any price."
Bush is losing on all fronts. And he is taking Iraq and our soldiers with him.
He is losing the Iraqis:
Critics of the drafting process now include some Sunni Arabs the administration had been able to count on in the past, such as Ghazi Ajil Yawer, one of Iraq's two vice presidents. Respected Middle East specialists, including some who have advised the administration in Iraq, worry about the way events have unfolded.
He is losing his popularity:
Gallup Poll results released Friday show Bush's approval rating fell 5 points in August to 40%, the lowest since he took office.
(And Gallup is being kind to Bush. ARG puts his popularity at 36%.)
He is losing the military and the diplomats:
Also worrisome for the administration is that doubts are being voiced more forcefully, although still privately, by some senior military officers, civilian Pentagon officials and U.S. diplomats....
"I think that we don't have very many levers out there to pull in Iraq," said a Pentagon official who was part of the U.S. occupation authority in Iraq and who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of his remarks.
It's not like he hadn't been warned all along:
Experts said it had always been unlikely that any draft constitution could satisfy all three major groups: Sunni Arabs, Shiite Arabs and Kurds. The Kurds and the Shiites had more in common, since both favored autonomy for their regions, and both groups wanted greater control over their regions' oil revenue.
Bush is still trying to sell Iraq as a success story. From this morning's weekly radio address:
In recent days, we have witnessed remarkable events in the broader Middle East. People are making the tough choices necessary for a future of security and hope that will make the region and the world more peaceful....
Iraqis are working together to build a free nation that contributes to peace and stability in the region, and we will help them succeed. American and Iraqi forces are on the hunt side by side to defeat the terrorists. As we hunt down our common enemies, we will continue to train more Iraqi security forces.
The reality on the ground is quite different:
[Speaker Hajim al-Hassan's] remarks indicated that negotiations on the new constitution had run their course. Barring a sudden change of mind by the Sunnis, the charter is likely to go to the voters over Sunni objections, setting the stage for a bitter political battle ahead of the referendum by supporters and opponents of the draft.
If the constitution clears parliament without Sunni blessing, it would be a blow to the Bush administration, which insisted all along that Sunni participation was critical to produce a document which was accepted by all communities.
Sunni Arabs are at the forefront of the insurgency and the Americans hoped the constitution would lure them away from the rebellion. But Sunni negotiator Saleh al-Mutlaq said the final draft fails to meet Sunni aspirations.
(UK Guardian 27 Aug 2005, from an AP story)
Or from today's New York Times:
Shiite and Kurdish leaders drafting a new Iraqi constitution abandoned negotiations with a group of Sunni representatives on Friday, deciding to take the disputed charter directly to the Iraqi people....
The decision to move forward was a heavy blow for the Bush administration, which had expended enormous energy and political capital to forge a constitution that included the Sunnis. On Thursday, in a last-ditch effort to get a deal, President Bush telephoned Abdul Aziz Hakim, a cleric and the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, to press him to offer a more palatable compromise to the Sunnis.
Even the conservative Hertiage Foundation gets the point:
[W]ithout the acceptance of Iraq's sizable Sunni minority, which has enough voting power to block ratification in October, the constitutional process will be in deep trouble; lack of cooperation among the three ethnic and religious groups if Iraq will certainly sow the seeds of future instability....
If Iraq's fragile constitutional edifice crumbles under the weight of disagreements, it will cause severe loss of face here in Washington. The Bush administration has staked everything in Iraq on the progress of a political settlement, which eventually will allow our troops to come home. Support for the war has declined to less than 50 percent among Americans, and a victory on the Iraqi Constitution would be most welcome for the White House from a public diplomacy standpoint. And yet, we have to be prepared to face the possibility of a failing constitutional process and to regroup for the long haul. It is more important to leave behind a viable edifice than it is to meet an artificial deadline. (Just ask the framers of the ill-fated European Constitution.)[ Emphasis added] (Helle Dale, of the Heritage Foundation, writing in the Phoenix Morning News August 26.)
Last minute note: As I was finishing up this diary, the Washington Post posted an AP wire that:
A Sunni Arab negotiator said Saturday that Sunnis submitted counterproposals on Iraq's constitution and would meet with the U.S. ambassador, who has urged the country's factions to produce a charter acceptable to all.
It is unclear from the article whether this an old proposal that was rejected or something new. Either way, this mess is what comes about of trying to jam through basic structures without planning and forethought, and it looks unlikely to mollify the hundreds of thousands of Sunnis, such as al-Sadr's followers, who have already given up in disgust.
