IT IS hard for the US to put a good face on Iraq’s delay in writing a constitution. But it is trying hard, praising the effort, if not the result, rapidly using up the lexicon of partial compliments and muted optimism.

President Bush, from his ranch, said that the Iraqis had made “heroic efforts” and “substantial progress” which were “a tribute to democracy”.

Condoleeza Rice, the Secretary of State, said: “I believe they are going to finish this”, and credited the Iraqis with “considerable momentum”.

How serious for the US is the delay of a week in producing a constitution? What does the US now want to happen, and what can it do to bring that about? The urgent US need is for a deal between Iraq’s majority Shias and the minority Sunnis and Kurds which will take the heat out of the Sunni insurgency.

The US also needs Iraq to stick, more or less, to the timetable that it has laid out for approving the constitution in October and holding new elections in December. The Administration’s plans for beginning to withdraw troops next year, which it has floated this summer, depend on those elections taking place.

Will they now do so? Monday’s cliffhanger, when the committee drafting the constitution asked the National Assembly for a week’s extension, has put that in doubt. It is the first time that Iraqis have missed an important deadline.

Privately, on Monday, Western officials were saying that they were already braced for a delay in producing a constitution, lasting even to the end of the month. It wouldn’t suit them to say so in public, for obvious reasons, but they could live with it, they said. That is probably right. A week need not jeopardise the timetable, provided that agreement does emerge. But the US has good reason to be afraid that this delay could become permanent: that Iraq’s Shias, Sunnis and Kurds will simply be unable to agree on a constitution.

That would trigger the dissolution of the National Assembly, and new elections under the country’s transitional law. The government which emerged from those, no doubt dominated by Shias again, might then feel entitled to force through a constitution acceptable to them.

That is the worst case. But another outcome, the one that looked likely throughout Monday’s wrestling with the text, is that Iraqis will agree on a constitution which ducks the main issues, leaving those to the assembly to sort out later.

From the US point of view, that is much, much better than nothing. The minimum that the US needs is a deal that keeps Sunnis on board and keeps the country together. US officials were encouraged on Monday when Shias appeared willing to relinquish their hope of a separate mini-state in the south. But it was bad news for them that at the eleventh hour, the Kurds resurrected their claims to one.

Beyond that bald minimum, the US is having to compromise on what it wants from a constitution. It has had to accept that Islam will have a considerable influence on national law. There is not much it can do about the impact this may have on women’s rights, particularly in family law and in the Shia- dominated south, where Sharia courts may become a standard alternative to secular ones.

But it will have been grateful at ferocious opposition by Sunnis on Monday to a late Shia proposition to make their council of ayatollahs exempt from national law. Many saw this as a preliminary to setting up an Iran-style theocracy.

The US has some residual influence over the constitution’s form, but not much: through the development money it offers, and through the presence of its troops, while the Government still finds them useful. But as it becomes more open about its desire to leave, its influence can be expected to dwindle further.

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