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It took the United States less than a year to write its first constitution. But that constitution, called the Articles of Confederation, failed utterly within eleven years for political and economic reasons. That failure led five states to call the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. In turn, that Convention drafted the Constitution which, as amended, has remained in place longer than any other constitution ever written for any other nation in history.
The US provided in those events another critical example for those who will write the new Iraqi constitution. They should pay attention to the failure of the first American constitution.

There is no room for constitutional failure in Iraq. Its first effort must be successful. It does not have the luxury of a second chance or more, as the US and most other nations have had. If the first Iraqi constitution fails, Turkey's influence will reach in from the north, Syria's from the west, and Iran's from the east. Iraq will then have a tripartite dictatorship to replace the single one from Hussein. The historical example here is Lebanon.

Well, Congressman Billybob, now you went and did it.
I agreed with all you wrote until I got to that last paragraph.

Then I realized that you left a few things out.
I don't think it was crummy editing.

The first US Constitution was written in a year and failed.
The second one which did not fail took how long?
Louder.... I can't hear you.

That's right 4 years!
And that was amomg states and people who had been "talking about it" for 15 years!.
And on top of all that, and after all that time, they had to cobble together the last bit of an afterthought called the "Bill of Rights"..

Now then, I ask you... You say two years for Iraq to do it is not unreasonable? It would be a fripping miracle!
You think?

From the time Cornwallis surrendered in 1781 to the start of the ratification process for the new Constitution in the US was 10 years.

Anybody who will not avoid looking at reality in Iraq must conclude that some sort of rule of law must be imposed by an outside party while the various tribes, factions and Saddam wannabes sort themselves out.
And I agree absolutely that if the theocracy has a role in the process all bets are off. The only remaining question then is just how long it will be before they get their next deserved butt-kicking.

You're mixing up your time frames. The Articles of Confederation lasted for 11 years, until 1787. Their failure, however, was clear a few years prior to that -- Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts, the federal bankruptcy which had our ambassadors begging high interest loans from foreign countries at 20% interest.

The whole process of writing the Constitution took a year and a half. First came the Annapolis Convention of 1786. Only five states attended, less than a quorum. It issued the invitation for all states to meet in Philadelphia. It first raised the subject of scrapping the Articles and writing a whole new constitution. A year later in May the Constitutional Convention started in Philadelphia. By the end of the summer it was written.

The ratification process (which is not part of the drafting process) took a year, though Rhode Island and North Carolina -- the hold-out states -- did not ratify for another year. So, the writing of the US Constitution was rather quick, though the Framers had years to think about what went wrong with the Articles.

John / Billybob