Wars and constitutions

THINK OF IRAQ. Does vindication for President Bush and hope spring to mind? Two editorial boards today say they should.

The Wall Street Journal says a 6,000-word letter from Al Qaeda’s No. 2 leader to the organization’s commander in Iraq shows that President Bush and Al Qaeda are “in accord on one thing: Iraq is the central battlefield.” The letter, the editorial says, proves that a “premature” U.S. withdrawal would be a mistake, and its “desperate” tone shows that insurgents are fighting a losing battle. The letter’s vision of a “global jihad” should have a familiar ring, the Journal writes, because “Bush has been warning the world about it for several years.” Presumably, “several years” includes before the war started in 2003, when Al Qaeda didn’t have so much as a toehold in Iraq.

The New York Times says today that Iraq’s draft constitution, up for a vote Saturday, is “badly flawed” and “a blueprint for national fragmentation and prolonged civil war” that leaves the “fundamental legal rights of Iraqi women insufficiently protected.” But there’s hope, the Times says, because Iraq’s rival factions brokered a deal that would make the marginalized Sunnis more willing to accept the constitution -- a “big improvement” that finally brings them into the electoral process. The Times hopes Iraqis will iron out the constitution’s flaws after it’s passed.

Elsewhere, USA Today writes that the debate among conservatives over whether Supreme Court nominee Harriet E. Miers is a true right-wing presidential loyalist is all wrong. Judges’ “blind loyalty to the presidents” who nominate them should be considered a liability, not a strong point, it says.

Paul Thornton