At 11.23 p.m. on Monday night, Iraqi parliamentary delegates decided to postpone agreement on a new constitution for another week. Fundamental disagreement on three key issues -- federalism, the role of Islam and women's rights -- seemed unresolvable to the Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni representatives.

Unied States diplomats and officials, who had put pressure on delegates to reach an agreement, tried to conceal their disappointment in the delay with a cloak of positive democratic hyperbole. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she was confident Iraq would "continue on a path to a permanent government by the end of the year." President George W. Bush, agreed, noting that the Iraqis had made "substantial progress."

The dispute over Iraq's federal structure remains one of the thorniest issues. Both Kurds and Shiites are demanding significant levels of autonomy in northern and southern Iraq respectively, including control over the country's rich oil reserves. Sunni Arabs, who live mostly in central and western Iraq, are a minority ethnic group, despite having held power under Sadaam Hussein. Their territory has no oil reserves, which is why they favor a centralized government in charge of oil.

Representatives are also deadlocked over the role of Islamic law in a new constitution, as well as its impact on Iraqi women's rights. Women's groups are vehemently against an Islamic codification, which they fear would make them second-class citizens by law. But Shiite Muslims, who make up 60 percent of the Iraqi population and emerged as a dominant force in January's elections (largely boycotted by Sunnis) want to impose Islamic rule in the south, including the decree that women should wear headscarves. Delegates now have another week to find a way through the impasse. The US is hoping that an agreement can be reached, not least because it might help quell the insurgency and bring US withdrawal a step closer.

Rather than get into complicated and thorny debates about the nature of an Iraqi constitution, however, the German papers prefer to take a broader view of the Iraq crisis.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung agrees wholeheartedly with the thesis that the only reason the US is pushing so hard for a quick ratification of a new constitution is so it can get out of Iraq quickly. "The situation in Iraq has not eased, the number of US (and Iraqi) victims of terrorism remains depressingly high, and more and more Americans are in favor of withdrawal." The only thing which is clear amidst the wreckage of US policy in Iraq is this: "Bush's presidency will stand or fall over Iraq."

While the terrible conditions in Iraq have replaced the US's post-war optimism with a kind of "new realism," the paper says this shouldn't be allowed to jeopardize the task now in hand. "If the bar is place too low, if too much is expected of weak Iraqi institutions because all that matters is the justification for a withdrawal of US troops, then the democratic goal of a new order will start to become blurred, and then eventually disappear." After the huge material and human costs of the war and reconstruction, that would be a terrible waste, the commentator concludes.

Die Welt uses the latest disputes over the Iraqi constitution as a springboard for a comprehensive critique of US militarism and the war on terror -- no mean feat for a half-page editorial. The commentary begins with a largely sympathetic defense of the Iraq war. The war "was the legitimate preventative strike of a massively insecure world power (post-9/11) against a criminal regime which misjudged the sign of the times." Controversially, the commentator continues, "After the terror attacks on New York and Washington, no American president could have run the risk of a notoriously unpredictable Iraq which sympathized with America's enemies."

In any case, the paper doesn't think a discussion of the reasons for going to war is particularly fruitful, rather it is the "aims" of the war that one should consider. "On the whole, the Iraq intervention has not been a success story ... After this experiment one can doubt -- or, at most, only agree to a limited extent -- whether military operations are suitable for the lasting export of western values."

But the paper admits the war has had certain "advantages". For one, the deterrent effect (read: Iran and North Korea) has increased, the commentator says, and there is no longer the illusion that the West won't follow through on its threats. And secondly, the war has, at least, banished the concept of ideological warfare within the Bush administration. "Wars should not be unleashed for moral reasons, but rather because of national or international security concerns," the commentator bleakly suggests.

On Tuesday, it's the Sueddeutsche Zeitung that comes along to really stick the knife into Washington's side. The US, the paper opines, "is sharing the same fate as infamous arsonists who love to be feted as fire-fighters. When Washington lit the fires more than two years ago with the invasion [of Iraq], it intoxicated itself with its elaborate concepts for fighting the fires and, of course, with reconstruction subsequently. After the slash and burn, so the promise came, the country should then be allowed to blossom again. But the flames are getting out of control, and it is slowing dawning on the arsonists that nothing will become of the brave new model democracy in Iraq." Instead of a peaceful democracy, Iraq now threatens to become an Islamic state, the commentator says, with no guarantees of improved security.

Over 1,800 US soldiers have now been killed in Iraq the paper notes, and it's getting ever more difficult to recruit young people into the US Army. But that shouldn't come as a surprise, the commentator suggests. "Even a withdrawal of US troops wouldn't calm the current situation. With the steadily increasing number of attacks, the path towards civil war looks almost predictable." The current haggling over the constitution just goes to show that political forces in Iraq are not strong enough to hold the country together, the commentator continues. "And what are the arsonists doing now? They're looking for a new target." The US now has its sights on Iran, the paper comfortingly concludes.