Iraq’s Constitutional “Details”

In inexorable fashion, Iraq now inches its way to within days of parliamentary approval of its new milestone constitution. Only a few details remain outstanding.

Among them: The somewhat dicey question of whether Iraq should be a federal state. Not all clans are comfortable with this concept.

And then there’s the official language issue. Not everyone (read: Kurds) thinks Arabic for everyone is a swell idea. And there’s that neighborhood precedent; Iran nixed Arabic for Farsi.

And then there’s the controversy about the official name. A lot of locals think the country can do better than “Iraq.”

And then there’s this matter of Islam, which is pretty much the underpinning for the holy terrorist war now plaguing the planet. No other religion seems so easily “hijacked”; none so intimately associated with suicidal mass murder. But Islam, to be sure, will have a role. The only question is whether that role will be domineering or just dominant.

Other than these constitutional loose ends — and an insurgency in its death rattle — Iraq seems good to go.

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