The prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari; the president, Jalal Talabani; and Hussein Shahrastani, a leading Shiite member of the National Assembly, all described their disagreements as minor ones that would be solved by the new deadline, this coming Monday.
"There are no issues without solutions," Mr. Talabani said at a news conference. "The points left are very few, such as the role of Islam, human rights, and the rights of women. There is a general agreement on them, but we need to word them precisely."
Minor... indeed.
Looking back, on July 10 I wrote:
That said, it is unlikely that there will be any negative reaction coming out of the Muslim world... more likely a positive reaction to the murders in England.Since then, there has been a denial of re-entry into England of a particularly vocal Islamic cleric.
What are the long term effects? I think that the Europeans will begin to resist further immigration of Muslims. It is likely that Turkey's efforts to join the European Union will be hurt further. Muslims living in Europe will find themselves the targets of hate crimes.
It is beginning.
Read further:
Muslims seem to have forgotten that the recent decades of Western European tolerance is really not part of their history... quite the contrary. First Spain, then Denmark, now Britain; these are strategic mistakes by the Islamic radicals.