Nation-building on deadline

IRAQ’S NATIONAL ASSEMBLY was right to extend Monday’s deadline to consider a draft constitution, considering that negotiators didn’t even seem clear about what they had already agreed upon. But the legislators must guard against more slippage and ensure that the one-week extension is not renewed.

Saddam Hussein held his country’s disparate ethnic and religious groups together through fear and murder. The Iraqi government elected in January requires voluntary cooperation, but the contentious deliberations on the constitution indicate the difficulty of reaching that goal.

Kurdish leaders asked for the delay. Their original demands were oil revenues from their land in the north and as much autonomy as possible. Shiites, who account for about 60% of the population and are concentrated in the south, wanted much the same. Sunnis, about 20% of Iraq’s population, are concentrated in the middle of the country with no access to oil. They support minimal autonomy north and south and a strong federal government collecting revenues nationwide for distribution to all citizens. Sunnis boycotted the elections and were slow to get representatives on the constitution-writing panel. But the insurgents are mostly Sunni, and ignoring Sunni concerns may make it harder to end the insurgency.

Legislators said other contentious constitutional questions were women’s rights and the role of Islam. Those issues sometimes seemed settled but later were disputed. They have been the most controversial subjects from the start of negotiations, and solving them in another week will require good faith and long hours from the assembly.

The Bush administration pressured Iraqis to approve the draft constitution by Monday. President Bush said last week that Washington had “made it clear that we believe that constitution can be and should be agreed upon by Aug. 15.” U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad moved between groups in Baghdad last week, urging them to work quickly; Sunday, he predicted the deadline would be met. When it was not, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice backpedaled, calling the delay “democracy at work” and saying there had been “substantial progress.”

It would make no sense to draft a blueprint full of such gaping holes as federalism, Islam and women’s rights. It’s more important to get as much as possible right than to meet deadlines. But deadlines do spur people to work harder. The U.S. is spending billions of dollars each month in Iraq and has more than 130,000 troops still there. That means neither Baghdad nor Washington has the luxury of time.