Democracy or disintegration, Iraqis decide

[Autonomy]

WASHINGTON - One day after the formal presentation by a majority of Iraq's elected leaders of their proposed constitution, opinions here and in Baghdad appear divided over whether the draft will lead to greater democracy or the virtual, if not actual, disintegration of the country.

While US officials predictably put the most positive spin on the charter, which will now be submitted to the Iraqi electorate for a vote October 15, other analysts warned that its provisions for regional autonomy will hasten the country's descent into a sectarian civil war that could eventually draw in neighboring states.

"I do not believe in this division between Shi'ite and Sunni and Muslims and Christians and Arabs and Kurds," the secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, told the BBC on Monday. ... I find in this a true recipe for chaos and perhaps a catastrophe in Iraq and around it."

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