A minor issue

According to the New York Times, the Iraqi constitutional committee has resolved to finish its work by August 15 after all, at the expense of some of the most contentious issues. But it's the Los Angeles Times that points out what the most contentious issue actually is:

The key, when it comes to Iraqi politics, is the map. And what it shows is that in the Shiite Muslim south and areas close to the Kurdish north lie vast oil deposits worth billions of dollars per year. In the center, where most Sunni Arabs live, lie sand and scrub.

While other issues remain under debate, including the rights of women and the role of Islam, there is only one that could provoke violent upheaval: whether political power and oil revenue will be controlled largely by a centralized national government or by regional authorities...

One increasingly likely scenario is that the drafters, in their reluctance to confront the difficult issue and force a compromise, will put in vague language that defers the hard choices.

The effect of the forced deadline is to make it likely that the most contentious issue, the ownership of Iraq's most valuable resource (and perhaps only hope of rapid development), will be left unresolved. This may result in a plausible enough process to allow Buch to bring home some troops before the '06 elections, but it's obviously a recipe for civil war in the long term.

Which may be exactly what the administration wants: to get out as quickly as possible while claiming victory, then argue later that the civil war is completely unrelated to U.S. involvement and thus not its problem.