If At First You Don't Succeed ...

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P> It's paralysis." Kanan Makiya, a Brandeis University professor who is on the council's constitutional committee, says, "We've been going around and around in circles. We have lost three months that we could have spent in a drafting committee."

To be fair to the council, its poor performance is not all its fault. The CPA has micromanaged what the Iraqis can decide and which Iraqis can be trusted.

"The problem with Americans," says a U.S. official, "is that we are control freaks. We need to let them make their own mistakes. It's their country. We are either about the business of being a valuable, competent adviser, or we are occupiers."

In truth, Bremer's initial plan was always dicey. Here's why: Shi'ite Muslims make up a majority in Iraq (60%), although under Saddam—a Sunni—they never had the power their numbers warranted. The Governing Council too has a Shi'ite majority. In the summer Ayatullah Ali Hussein al-Sistani issued a fatwa saying that any body drafting a constitution had to be elected, not appointed by the council. Al-Sistani, though Iranian by birth, is the most senior Shi'ite religious leader in Iraq. There was no chance that the council would openly oppose his will, and—because his tolerance of the occupation acts as a buffer between coalition forces and potential unrest among the Shi'ites—no chance that the CPA would force the council to do so. "Al-Sistani," says Flynt Leverett, a former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council, "is seen as apolitical, so he carries a lot of respect."

But bowing to political realities on the council won't necessarily help Washington achieve its larger goals. For the idealists in the Administration, one purpose of the adventure in Iraq was to create in the Middle East a democratic, pluralistic state with protections for the rights of minorities and women. But an Iraqi constitution written by an elected body in all likelihood means a constitution written by the Shi'ite majority. That runs the risk that neither the Sunnis nor the Kurds—both of whom want their interests protected—will be content with it. And though there is little appetite among Iraqi Shi'ites for an Iranian-style constitutional theocracy, there is a growing recognition that the new Iraq will look more like a confessional state than many in the Administration had hoped. "Islam's going to be in (the constitution), no matter what," says a CPA official. Says an adviser to the Administration: "We don't have to make Iraq look like the U.S. If we get (a stable country) that's more Islamic than we would like, that's O.K." Even that goal will be at risk if the security situation does not improve. In a guerrilla war, the sort of heavy-duty offensive launched last week can quickly backfire. "We risk looking really stupid if we say that we're going to get really tough but we can't, and if those measures only push those Iraqis sitting on the fence over to the other side," says former Marine Lieut. Colonel Dale Davis, who served in the Middle East and North Africa. "You don't win hearts and minds by blowing up somebody's house."

That's if you can find the house in the first place. The U.S. armed forces' awesome technology is of limited use in a low-intensity war, in which guerrillas can attack at a time and place of their choosing. Already the Pentagon has withdrawn space-age systems like the Global Hawk high-flying drones from the conflict, although they could conceivably be used to stop foreign fighters sneaking into Iraq. "Too much of our stuff is too complicated for what is happening in Iraq now," says an Army colonel. "All the smart bombs are worth nothing if you don't know where to drop them." What's needed is intimate knowledge of neighborhoods where the insurgents gather. And that's something the U.S. and its coalition allies lack. "The U.S. Army does not have a fraction of the linguists required to operate in the Central Command's area of responsibility," says a report from the Center for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kans.