Worth waiting in Iraq

THE ISSUES dividing Iraq's communities are based on such deep convictions that it is not surprising or necessarily damaging that legislators have given themselves another week to come up with a constitution. To maintain the confidence of the millions who voted in the January election, it is crucial that legislators move in a timely way to approve a constitution that Iraqis can vote on in a national referendum, currently scheduled for Oct 15. But agreement on a constitution with support from all communities, even if it takes extra time, is more meaningful than meeting a deadline that seemed to be of greatest importance to Bush administration officials.

The worst outcome of the negotiations would have been a constitution that permitted the Shiite majority in the south to create an autonomous Shiite region, especially if the region were given control over the south's oil. This would have given additional impetus to the insurgents, many of whom are Sunni Muslims who fear that their community will be left with a resource-poor rump state if there are autonomous regions for the Shiites in the south and the Kurds in the north.

The Bush administration seems most interested in check-marking a succession of political accomplishments in the hope that they will lead to a unified Iraq capable of suppressing the insurgents without help from the United States. A rushed, one-sided constitution, however, could propel the hostilities there to the level of civil war.

The difficulty that members of the National Assembly are having in coming to an agreement on ground rules for Iraq's democratic future simply reflects the nation's deep religious and ethnic differences, which Saddam Hussein dealt with through brutal force, relying heavily on his fellow Sunnis, even though they were a minority. Democracy will work in a united Iraq only if elected representatives of the population are willing to set aside demands that are unacceptable to one of the other major communities.

The moderate Sunni leaders who have not turned to violence are an indispensable force in the drafting of a constitution. They have made clear in interviews with journalists that their own lives would be at risk at the hands of Sunni insurgents if they were to agree to Shiite views on regional autonomy. Shiite leaders and Bush administration officials have to respect this and do everything possible to keep moderate Sunnis from throwing in their lot with the killers.

Besides federalism and control over oil, other issues still reportedly dividing the drafters of the constitution are women's rights and the role of Islam in the new government. Workable compromises on questions like these are worth waiting for.