The task is to be completed in time to submit the draft constitution to a national plebiscite by October 15, 2005. Constitutions are rarely written during calm times. Countries rarely feel any pressure to redesign their basic institutions unless they are confronting crisis. There are some exceptions, of course—in fact, one of the major obstacles to the development of constitutionalism in the Arab world is that constitutions were written under conditions of insufficient turmoil.