The first true post-war victory

"Shiite Muslim political leaders who had refused to sign the country's interim constitution said Sunday that they would approve the document without changes on Monday despite concerns voiced by the country's top cleric," reports the Washington Post. A Sullivan capsule analysis:

The violence in Iraq - even the horrifying sectarian mass murders last week -- have failed to derail the tortuous political process. It's not surprising that there should be last-minute renegotiations, brinksmanship and the like in forging a new constitution in a fissiparous country. That's called politics. It hasn't been practised in Iraq for many, many years. Its emergence - however imperfect - is wonderfully good news. Instead of lamenting this wrangling, we should be encouraged. What we're seeing is something you simply don't see anywhere else in the Arab-Muslim world: negotiation trumping violence. This isn't a path to democracy. In important ways, it is democracy. The first true post-war victory is ours - and, more importantly, Iraq's.

Meanwhile, "Just hours after the 25-member Iraqi Governing Council approved that nation's new interim constitution, a three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned it on the grounds that it provides 'excessive power to the ignorant masses,'" reports ScrappleFace:

"Democracy cannot be entrusted to millions of people who have never been to law school," an unnamed judge wrote for the panel. "Ultimately power must rest in the hands of those who know what's best for others. That's the American model, and that is what we should export to the world."

"It's possible that within 10 to 12 years," the panel concluded, "that judges could be prepared to rule equitably in Iraq as they do here in the United States. Only then could Iraq return to the relative stability it has enjoyed for the past three decades."

We're reminded of then President Bill Clinton's obscene "Sure, we could cut taxes, but what if you spent your money wrong?"