Billmon: Let's Break a Deal

It's hard to know what to make of the latest bargain struck in the constitutional bazaar in Baghdad, other than that it appears to have rendered Saturday's referendum completely superfluous.

That's pretty ironic, considering that the vote is supposed to mark yet another "turning point" in the Global War to Plant the Tree of Democracy in the Garden of Peace and Prosperity in the Middle East. But instead, Iraqis are being asked to cast their votes for or against a complex document that only a handful of them have even seen, that's already been amended, and that is supposed to be thrown open to even more amendments in the next parliament. All this at the behest of the same small clique of factional clan leaders who secretly drafted the deeply flawed original.