Saturday, August 27, 2005

Conflict over consensus

For those holding out hope that there were still constitutional negotiations going on in Iraq, the process is over with no Sunni agreement:
Sunni Arab political leaders condemned a draft of Iraq's proposed constitution handed to them on Saturday and made last-ditch efforts to revise the document even as Shiite and Kurdish leaders insisted that it would be published without substantial changes.

The Shiite leaders said late Saturday night that they were already planning the details of the ceremony where the final document will be received by the National Assembly on Sunday afternoon...

Asked what the consequences of such a rupture might be, (a Sunni negotiator) said: "The violence will go up, the hope among the people will go down. And the extremists will be the ones who are in control of the country."

The U.S.' part in all this was to get tired of playing messenger between the Iraqi factions. This should be all the more comfort to the families of slain troops, not to mention the troops still in Iraq. Apparently Bush's vision for Iraq is worth thousands of military lives (not to mention all the Iraqi civilians killed), but it's not important enough for the U.S.' diplomatic envoys to spend any more time on actual diplomacy.

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