So you say you want a constitution (v. 3.0)

It takes something pretty important to knock the King off the top of this blog.

Iraq

In the spirit of let's make this constitution up as we go along -- No. Maybe, in the spirit of trying to keep the country in one piece -- Perhaps. In the spirit of American pressure and we need to keep them semi-happy -- Uh.

Robert Worth in the New York Times filing from Baghdad:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 11 - Iraqi political leaders said they had agreed to an important last-minute change in the draft constitution this evening in exchange for a promise by some prominent Sunni Arab leaders to publicly support the document in the nationwide referendum on Saturday.

And what good news this could possibly mean:

The change would also give Sunni Arabs, who largely boycotted elections in January, a significant new motive for participating in politics. The more parliament seats they win in the December elections, the better chance they will have of changing the constitutional provisions they oppose, like the passages allowing for the creation of semiautonomous regions within Iraq.