Baghdad, Iraq — The failure of Iraqi leaders to reach a deal on their new constitution by Monday's deadline has underscored a hard reality about the state of affairs in Iraq: The country is even more divided than many of its citizens had realized.
Far from rallying Iraqis around a shared vision of their nation's future, the constitutional negotiations have so far only exposed the deep religious, political and sectarian fault lines dissecting this nation of 24 million people.
Iraqi politicians Tuesday said they were optimistic that they would be able to resolve all the outstanding issues by the new deadline, next Monday.
But there was also disagreement on what issues had blocked a deal, with the Kurds blaming the Shiites, the Shiites blaming the Kurds and Sunnis blaming both.
As the Kurdish aspirations for independence clash with the Shiite yearning for a form of Islamic rule, the Sunnis fear that their identity will be subsumed if either one of those agendas is realized. The three-way battle of wills is leaving Iraqis without a clear sense of where their country is headed.
On the streets of Baghdad, Iraqis said Tuesday that they were deeply concerned by the politicians' failure to agree, and worried that there would still be no agreement next week.
"The defect is with the leaders who are writing the constitution, not the Iraqi people," said Abu Sameer, who runs a little grocery store near the Babylon Hotel in Baghdad's Karrada district.
"These leaders will destroy the future of our children for the sake of their own agendas, and I fear there will only be more problems ahead, because I don't think they will ever agree with one another," he said.
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, acknowledged that he was "personally disappointed" that the deadline had been missed despite the energetic efforts he has exerted since he arrived in late July to persuade the factions to find a compromise.
"We have a lot at stake. I'm not going to be shy about that," he told a press conference. "A lot of American treasure and blood has been spent here. And so I'm not going to stand by, if they need my help, to say ... you can sink or swim on your own."
The parties had been close to an agreement, he said, and chose to seek an extension only to finalize a few unresolved details.
"We thought until the very end that the draft would be finished," he said. "Based on my knowledge of the state of discussion among Iraqi leaders and the agreements that have been arrived at already with regard to key issues and what remains, I believe than an agreement will be arrived at" by next Monday.
Iraq's Kurdish president, Jalal Talabani, also said he was optimistic the new deadline would be met, and insisted Kurds are not seeking independence, one of the key issues that Shiites said had held up the agreement. "There are rumors the Kurds want to secede, but they are for unity," he told reporters.
If these competing visions can be accommodated in the form of a new constitution, the delay will have little impact on the political timetable. Iraq will remain on track to hold a referendum on the new constitution on Oct. 15, followed by fresh elections under its terms on Dec. 15, completing the transition to full democracy and perhaps enabling a drawdown of American troops next year.
If not, the assembly could request another extension. Otherwise it will be dissolved, and fresh elections will be held for a new one, plunging Iraq into another period of prolonged political uncertainty and perhaps deeper chaos.
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said he doubted a further delay would be necessary. "The delay was for one week only and the pending points do not need more time," he told a news conference.
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