Iraq parliament adjourned after voting to extend the deadline to 22 August, acting on a request from Kurdish leaders for more time after politicians failed to meet a Monday midnight deadline for agreement on the charter. Legally this had to resolve the national assembly of Iraq according to the TAL.

Meeting the Monday deadline would have been a victory for US President George Bush's administration, which had made clear in recent weeks that it was pushing for a constitution by then, even if some issues was left undecided.

Yesterday, July 14, we talked with Antonia Juhasz about Iraq constitution draft.

• Antonia Juhasz is a Project Director at the International Forum on Globalization (www.ifg.org) and a Foreign Policy in Focus (www.fpif.org) scholar. She is a Project Censored Award recipient and co-author of Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World is Possible, 2nd Ed. Her articles have appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Cambridge University Review of International Relations Journal, and the Johannesburg Star. [Rush transcript]

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

Shahram Vahdany -The Americans prepared the Iraq constitution for the Iraqis. Is this true

Antonia Juhasz - The current draft being discussed is based on the transitional administrative law, which was written during the period when the US formal occupation was still in place by Paul Bremer and the other members of the coalition provisional authorities, the US interim government of Iraq , basically, which replaced the Hussein era constitution just completely, overrode it. The Iraqi governing council Oked it so there was Iraqi buy-in but essentially the transitional administrative law is considered a US document. That document forms the basis of the negotiations that are going on today and definitely setting the tone. However the Iraqis have definitely come into the process significantly more this time than at least over the transitional administrative law, however in the past couple weeks in particular Khalizad the us ambassador to Iraq has really stepped up his pressure, his engagement and at this point is literally writing text for the draft constitution to try and make sure that the August 15th deadline, which again was put in place in the transitional administrative law so even that deadline is a US imposed deadline to make sure that that is met. Therefore, I would say that it is not exactly accurate to say that this is totally a US document. I think that the Iraqis who are part of the drafting process have to take responsibility for what the outcome of the constitution's going to be and that it reveals them, to be, most of them, it seems to me, more in line with the Bush Administration than they are necessarily with the Iraqi people, for a lot of them anyway. {mosgoogle right}

Shahram Vahdany -What happens if they do not meet the deadline?

Antonia Juhasz - I think they're going to. Khalizad is on TV right now, on FOX news saying that he thinks it's going to happen. If 5they don't make the August 15th deadline, according to the TAL, the national assembly of Iraq has to dissolve. And they have to start all over again with elections. The members of the drafting committee are all members of the National Assembly who don't want to lose their positions. So it seems likely that they will push through just for political reasons because they want to remain members of the NA. What I think is more likely to happen is that the constitution will be agreed upon, the draft, tomorrow, Monday, and then the real horse-trading will begin because there's two months before October 15th when the public then votes in a referendum on the constitution. And during that period I think is, when we will see the real political positions of each of the groups probably solidify even more. And hopefully. What will happen is that there actually will be public debate, which thus far there hasn't been any. And hopefully what will happen is that the Bush Administration will no longer be the absolute guiding force behind the constitution. But that's going to be more of a test case, is what's going to happen in the next two months.

Shahram Vahdany - Okay, I'll come back to this, but first I want to ask you if they have extension time

Antonia Juhasz - No, there's no extension, so if you'll remember, KhaliZad and Rumsfeld both went to Iraq , suddenly. Around August the 1st. The reason why they were dispatched to Iraq is that August the 1st was the one opportunity that the Iraqis had to ask for an extension. At that point they had the opportunity to ask for an extension of six months on the constitution and the Iraqis were very much leaning toward doing that. It was clear that there were huge differences that still remain and it looked like they were going to ask for the extension. Well that's when KhaliZad and Rumsfeld went to Iraq to say 'this is a US process and the US wants the constitution to be completed so that elections can be completed on time so that Bush can show that he's done something right in Iraq . And so they did not ask for the extension and there are therefore no more extensions.

Shahram Vahdany - How will the people vote on this. Will it be Yes or No.

Antonia Juhasz - Yeah. It's and up or down vote in a public referendum,. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration is talking about increasing the US military presence in advance of the referendum. Which means that we're most likely going to have the same scenario as the elections that were held in January, which is an occupied police state, which doesn't create the environment for democratic elections. The Carter Center which is really considered one of the preeminent non-partisan bodies that does international monitoring of elections, did not qualify the January Iraqi elections as valid elections because they didn't meet any of the minimal standards for real democratic elections. And it seems that that's the same path that Iraq is on for the October 15th vote. If the constitution is voted down on, Oct. 15th then everything starts again, a new National Assembly is voted, a new drafting committee take place and a new constitution will have to be drafted.

Shahram Vahdany - How does this draft deal with federalism, especially with the Kurdish Region.

Antonia Juhasz - I think at this point we're just going to have to wait to see what happens on Monday. The issues of federalism are what the language is changing literally every minute. And there's no way for us to tell right now what that's going to be.