Good sense on the Iraqi constitution
Somebody else agrees with my view that constitution-writing in Iraq is too weighty a matter to be rushed.
Today, the Crisis Group (formerly the International Crisis Group) came out with this report, titled, Iraq: Don't rush the Constitution.
It took them a while to come to broadly the same conclusion I expressed back in this April 14 column in the CSM. And they don't explicitly say, as far as I can see, that the next election in Iraq could be held on the basis of an Interim Constitution and thus need not await and be held hostage to the attainment of final agreement on a Permanent Constitution.
But still, the CG undoubtedly has a whole lot more weight in international affairs than I do. So it's good to see them take even this partial step.
Am I mistaken in thinking that L. Paul Bremer the III was a member of this group prior to becoming potentate of colonial Iraq??
No, he worked for a big money-making operation called the Marsh Crisis Group.
The CG is a noticeably more above-the-board operation. It acts like a policy-recommending think-tank for a whole bunch of "good" Scandinavian, west European, Canadian governments, etc., and draws on a lot of expertise from those countries as well as the US.
Any talk about constitution writing just seems delusional at this point. The war for control of Iraq is really just starting to heat up. The constitution - if there ever is one - will be written by the victors. We don't know who that will be yet.
So I guess I agree with your point about not rushing it, but it's almost not even worth serious discussion right now.
"Baghdad June 8, 2005. Gunmen killed two bodyguards of an official who is a member of the committee drafting Iraq's constitution in an attack on their car on June 8 2005, an Interior Ministry official said. The bodyguards of Freydoun Abdel Qadir, a member of the National"
Let see who will stay with the committee