According to this story on MSNBC.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9084376/
negotiations regarding the draft constitution have ended in Iraq. Shia and Kurdish leaders intend to send it to referendum without full Sunni support.
BAGHDAD - Iraq's Shiite and Kurdish leaders decided Friday to send an amended constitution to parliament this weekend, even though Sunni Arab negotiators said they rejected the latest document. Bypassing the Sunnis would be a blow to U.S. efforts to lure Sunnis away from the insurgency
More below the fold...
This is certainly not a good thing for the United States, or Iraq. The insurgency is mainly Sunni, and this will ensure ramped up violence over the next few days/weeks.
And, it looks like the U.S. leadership is still delusional
In Washington, U.S. officials insisted negotiations were on track and that talks at some level were still ongoing before dawn Saturday. However, Iraqi government spokesman Laith Kubba said the two-month negotiations were hopelessly deadlocked.
"This is the end of the road," Kubba told Al-Arabiya television. "In the end, we will put this constitution to the people to decide."
Failure to win Sunni endorsement of the draft would be a major embarrassment for President Bush, who telephoned a top Shiite leader, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, and urged him to make compromises with the Sunnis to keep them on board.
It looks like Bush's call to make some consessions to the Sunni's was acted upon, though apprantly not enough.
But Sunni negotiators angrily rejected the compromises. A leading Sunni negotiator, Saleh al-Mutlaq, called on Iraqis to reject the document in the referendum, warning of a "terrifying and dark future awaiting Iraq."
Kamal Hamdoun, another senior Sunni negotiator, also insisted that "no agreement has been reached so far."
I keep hoping Iraq will somehow turn into a sucessful state, but its looking less and less likely every day.
