The Wire

In just a few hours time the world will know whether Iraq’s main religious and ethnic groups have managed to hammer out a new constitution for the country, which remains occupied by US forces. As late as last night it was not certain that a deal could be stuck in time for today’s dealine. The three main groups in Iraq, Kurds, Sunnis and Shites, all have different and competing concerns surrounding issues such as federalism and the role of Islam in society. The US administration has been visibly placing pressure on the key groups to come up with a deal for today. American and Iraq officials are marketing the constitution as a key policy aimed at stablising the country and halting the flow of support to the Sunni-led insurgency. However, critics argue that the pressure being applied by the occupying force could see the whole process derailed. They question the ability for any genuinely Iraqi constitution to be drawn up under occupation. Ahead of the deadline for the unveiling of the constitution, Erica Vowles spoke with Amin Saikal, the Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic studies at the Australian National University in Canberra. He outlined the main deadlocks concerning the constitution.