80%!

Humam Hammodi, Chairman of the constitution drafting committee told Al-Sabah that the branch teams of the committee have succeeded so far in completing 80% of the constitution's draft.
Hammodi added that his colleagues at the committee branch-teams are willing to fulfill the task by the previously set deadline of August 15th 2005.
"The final draft will come out with an Iraqi spirit and there are actually little differences to debate" said Hammodi.

As a matter of fact, I'm not the least surprised by this bit of news because I was expecting this process to move smoother than the previous chapters of the democratic change in Iraq, yet I'm a little bit amazed at the rapid progress being made despite all the current difficulties that make any progress incomprehensible for many people outside Iraq and don't blame them for thinking that way because it's unfair to expect them to believe that work can be done this fast in a country living in such rough conditions.

I believe what made such a rapid progress possible is the availability of a good foundation from which a new permanent constitution can be created and here I'm talking about the TAL.
I actually didn't read the whole TAL but I had the chance to read the bill of human rights and it looked quite fair to me and I have no problem with using this law as a basic structure for the permanent constitution.

Everyone noticed that this law was heavily criticized by more than a one group when announced in the 1st place.
However-with time-this law has succeeded in winning the trust of most of the previously skeptical groups and individual politicians.

I remember that many Sunni (as well as dome She'at) politicians considered that law as an American plan to give the Kurds more rights than they deserve but lately I began to see the same people resort to the same law and use some of its clauses to defend their view points!
This might sound weird but actually it's good because it shows that people who chose to join the political process are beginning to use reason instead of their emotions and worn-out conspiracy theories.

So my guess is that the working members of the constitution drafting committee (I'll call CDC for short from now on) are introducing slight modifications to the TAL as a way to get the draft ready on time and to avoid wasting precious time while waiting for the additional 15 Sunni members to join the team.
And when those 15 members occupy their seats in the CDC, I think logically there will be further discussions to approve or re-discuss the clauses in question.

Bottom line, the people won the war when they said their word on the 30th of January and since then, many of the hesitant elements recognized the winning side and began joining it while the barking dogs will have nothing left to chew on but their bitter defeat.