Since I pooh-poohed it earlier...
Let me just say that if the optimism of this report is borne out in the next 12 hours or so, it would be pretty great. I still think that placing a lot of faith in the new constitution to prevent all-out civil war is probably a bit naive, but I don't want to be in any way dismissive of the good-faith efforts of a lot of people (mostly Iraqis, but also some American and other foreign diplomats as well) to craft an effective one.
I do worry, however, that Juan Cole's smart reference to this Christian Science Monitor report from six months ago will still be proved right. Basically, the constitution is being designed in a way meant to prevent civil war, ensuring that each major Iraqi group (Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds) will have enough say in the management of their own lives that they will not feel the need to secede. The problem is that this level of autonomy will likely come at the price of government effectiveness, an especially worrisome problem in a country with roughly 50% unemployment, continuing police incapacity, and a lot of guns. People speak of the worst problem of the current political bargains as being the possible unwillingness of the Sunnis to sign off on it. But the worse problem, from my perspective, is the probability that a terribly gridlocked government will find it extraordinarily difficult to create any nationally effective policies without lapsing into bitter distributional disputes.
I'm not trying to knock the constitution that will develop, though as someone who prizes secular reign, I worry about basing too much of the constitution on the Koran just as I do continuing American efforts to make the Bible a stronger part of civic life. But I do think that the extended deadlines, behind-the-scenes deals, and the like, ought not distract us from the crucial issue: Iraq is a badly divided society with virtually non-existent state capacity except in the form of an occupying power. Having a constitution would certainly be a step in the right direction, but this is a very long road, and I'm skeptical that the path will be a smooth one for Iraqis or a sustainable one for the American presence. Glib references to the difficulty of America's democratic development or to Japanese acceptance of the 1947 constitution barely camouflage the fact that this is a different country facing very different conditions.