Here's what Diamond just said on Meet the Press:
"Let me emphasize, no constitution is not as bad an outcome for now as a bad constitution. And a bad constitution could be a profoundly illiberal, that abridge's women's rights, or it could be constitution that leaves out a section of the country. And the Sunnis are aggrieved now. They feel that they're not in the inner cricil of negotiations. They feel like they may be left out of deal, that a radical federation may be forced upon them and this could lead to a really horrific showdown in the referendum with a section of the country trying to defeat constitution."
BTW, let's say the U.S.-Shiite strong-arming works and Iraqi lawmakers pass a Shiite-uber-alles constitution is passed. The only good thing is that, Diamond reminds, it would still have to be ratified in national referendum. At that point, Sunnis would be hoping for a defeat of the constitution, as would (or at least should) pro-democracy types.
In any case, that scenario at two possible outcomes: 1) A Shiite-dominated constitution passes, giving all sorts of fuel to the insurgency. 2) Sunnis gets their stuff together and help defeat the constitution. At that point, we're back to square one: elections for a national asssembly.
So why not just hope the constitutional assembly ends in an impasse. There'd still be new elections for a national assembly, just minus an extra stage of wheel-spinning.
Here are my previous ponderings on the potential benefits of a failed constitutional assembly.
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