Tony Karon, Senior Editor for world coverage at TIME.com, in a commentary for The War In Context has an interesting insight on the Shi`a walkout from the “constitution” signing ceremony yesterday in Baghdad.
“Both by some of the issues they’ve raised and by their timing, the Shiite representatives who sabotaged Paul Bremer’s constitution signing ceremony on Friday are making a fundamental point: They see the interim administrative law as nothing more than a temporary set of rules governing the brief interlude between the U.S. handover and Iraqi elections — an interim measured in months. And they are sticking hard by Ayatollah Sistani’s insistence that the constitution of a new Iraq be adopted by an elected body. That accounts, in particular, for their rejection of the provisos inserted at the insistence of the Kurds that a majority veto in any region would prevent the adoption of a new constitution. The Kurds are trying to use the last months of the formal occupation to codify their autonomy and create legal obstacles to reversing it, and the Shiite leadership is plainly having none of it. The fact that the Shiites see the document as nothing more than an interim agreement to facilitate the July 1 handover also explains their very deliberate upstaging of Bremer’s showcase. They appear to want none of the pageantry of chamber orchestras and Founding Fathers-type signing ceremonies which might imply greater historical significance for the document than they’re prepared to grant. For Sistani’s supporters, plainly, the Founding Fathers moment comes only in 2005, when a constitution drafted by an elected body is adopted, and Bremer watches from the audience in his capacity as U.S. ambassador.“
I wondered about this when I first heard of the elaborately staged signing ceremony complete with orchestra and children’s choir in representative native costumes. Juan Cole* describes it as “All Dressed Up With No Place To Go:”
A huge formal signing ceremony had been arranged, attended by hundreds of people and the press, who just kept waiting for hours and hours as the five were holed up with Ahmad Chalabi. Finally the Coalition Provisional Authority announced that nothing would happen, and everyone went home.
The whole performance was a huge embarrassment for the Bush administration, which had counted on enacting the Basic Law as a prelude to finding a way to hand sovereignty over to an Iraqi government of some description on June 30. That deadline seems increasingly shaky.
Is it really worth it to Al Sistani, who was apparently behind the objections which proved insurmountable Friday, to deliver such a slap in the face to Bremer and Bush? Apparently so. It will be interesting to watch when and if a new signing is arranged if it isn’t done in a more low-key way, more in keeping with an interim Basic Law rather than the “New Constitution” as Bush referred to it in his Saturday radio address.
*While you’re at Juan Cole’s informative blog, check out his dossier on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the New Iraqi Osama.
If in case you have DDR2 RAM, you simply can upgrade your laptop computer by purchasing one other RAM of DDR2 sort. Whether your gaming laptop computer is built-for-a-business highway warrior or you merely prefer to take your gaming expertise to the subsequent level, you possibly can enhance your system's speed and performance with a Corsair Vengeance RAM Reminiscence. Do not misunderstood by the image which looks like reminiscence for desktop. E-Wood Blinds