Constitution rush disheartens many

One exile said current conditions may destroy the 'very possibility of an Iraq.'
LONG ISLAND NEWSDAY
WASHINGTON -- As recently as July, there was still a very cautious optimism within the ranks of Iraq experts here that the Land of Two Rivers would emerge from its current quagmire as a strong and free country.
But the rush to adopt what is universally seen as a highly imperfect constitution, which nevertheless goes to the voters Saturday, has raised for some the specter of Iraq's dismemberment and possibly full-scale civil war.
Many lay the blame at the feet of the U.S. government, which insisted in August that the constitution be completed despite pleas from its drafters that they be given the extra six months allowed in the interim constitution that was approved in March 2004.
Even ardent Iraqi nationalists such as former Ambassador-Designate to Washington Rend Rahim and noted Republican war-backer Danielle Pletka of the conservative American Enterprise Institute are publicly expressing their disappointment with the document.
At the Pentagon, Gen. George Casey, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, who in the spring was predicting a substantial pullout of U.S. troops within a year, recently refused to reaffirm his prediction, citing the constitution's failure to be accepted as a "national compact."
Divisions
"Sectarianism and ethnic self-interest" have led to the writing of a document that divides Iraq along ethnic lines, "perhaps even dealing the death blow to the idea of Iraq that had sustained the opposition for so many years," Kanan Makiya, a Brandeis University professor and Iraqi exile, said at a conference in Washington last week.
It was Makiya, a former ally of Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi, who President Bush chose to join him in the Oval Office to watch as a statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down after the invasion in 2003.
Iraq's problems, driven by the relentless insurgency, have produced "so many dashed hopes and fledgling dreams" that they may have destroyed "the very idea and the very possibility of an Iraq," Kanan said.
Rahim, once the public face of the new Iraq in Washington, said at the AEI-sponsored conference that she agrees with Makiya. The new constitution is so full of ambiguities and creates such a weak central government that it may "spin the state out of control," she said.
Bush, in a major speech on Thursday, seemed to address the mounting skepticism about the war.
"Some observers look at the job ahead and adopt a self-defeating pessimism. It is not justified," he said. "The elected leaders of Iraq are proving to be strong and steadfast.
"Some observers question the durability of democracy in Iraq," he insisted. "They underestimate the power and appeal of freedom."
Ambiguity
The Iraq parliament approved the constitution in August despite bitter infighting and heavy opposition from the Sunni Arab minority. The result was a document that leaves key decisions about the future of Iraq to be clarified by the new government, which is scheduled to be elected in December if the constitution is approved Saturday.
What it does make clear is that a weak central government in Baghdad would have little control over three regions likely to be carved out for Kurds in the north, Shia in the south and leftover Sunnis in the center. This structure is bitterly opposed by the Sunnis, who would be left with no natural resources or means of support, and threatens to drive even moderate Sunnis into the arms of the insurgency, the experts say.
The regions would have the power to veto most national laws, and the central government would not have the authority to enforce its own laws or the constitution, according to experts.