The last-minute haggling, disagreements and delays in submitting a draft constitution to the Iraqi parliament were neither surprising nor disastrous. Drawing up any constitution is difficult, as every phrase and every clause will have long-term binding influence on the politics, democratic development and human rights of a country. For those 71 members of the Iraqi constitutional drafting committee, the task was doubly challenging: not only do they have to reconcile widely divergent views on Iraq’s political, social and economic future and the all-important question of Islam’s role in national life; they must also work out a basis for nation-building in a country that has been an independent and democratic unitary state for less than two decades in the past 400 years.

To many Iraqis, and also many outsiders, the delays have been troubling. They have weakened the authority of the Shia-led Government of Ibrahim Jaafari, encouraged the violent insurgency of terrorists exploiting the drift in Baghdad and called into question the timetable for elections in December to choose a permanent government and a programme for recovery. The Americans, especially, urged Iraq’s political leaders to end their bickering and agree a constitution by yesterday’s deadline. For unless there was at least political will to create a government of national unity, hope that the US could start reducing its troop strength in Iraq was unrealistic.

Two issues have been particularly fraught: the degree of autonomy for Iraq’s three ethnic and geographic regions; and the place of Islam in the State. Both lie at the heart of other vexed issues: control and distribution of oil wealth, the rights of minorities and the position of women in society. The Kurds and the Shias, who, thanks to the Sunni boycott of the January elections, make up the vast majority of the National Assembly, wanted a federal structure that grants considerable autonomy to the three regions. Both the Kurdish north and the Shia south are rich in oil and wanted to keep much of the income for themselves — though the Shia, set to dominate any administration, were wary of depriving the central government of vital finances. The Sunni, by contrast, wanted a unified structure with constitutional guarantees for their interests and national control of oil income so that funds can be allocated to Baghdad and the poorer Sunni central region.

The place of religion was, if anything, more vexed. Many Shia leaders, with ominous backing from Tehran, wanted an essentially theocratic state in which Shia Islam played a dominant role and where all laws were based on Sharia. The Sunnis bitterly disputed this, though few advocated the secularism of Saddam’s early days, and the Kurds and religious minorities such as Christians opposed Sharia being anything more than an element of national law. An immediate point of contention was the legal and social status of women, with the demands for equality by urban educated women strongly resisted by the Shia Establishment as well as by some women in the south. The challenge is to ensure that one faction does not hijack the debate.

Compromise was elusive, especially as each group faces intense factional pressure. Extending the deadline would awkwardly prolong the interregnum. But it was better to reach consensus than to railroad an anxious and resentful Sunni minority into a flawed, unsustainable agreement.