More than 1,000 Sunni Arab clerics, political leaders and tribal heads ended their two-year boycott of politics in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq on Saturday, uniting in a Sunni bloc that they said would help draft the country's new constitution and compete in elections.
Formation of the group comes during escalating violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims that has raised the threat of sectarian war. The bloc represents moderate and hard-line members of the Association of Muslim Scholars, the Iraqi Islamic Party and other main groups of the disgruntled Sunni minority toppled from dominance when U.S.-led troops routed Hussein in April 2003.
Sunnis have remained on the sidelines of the Iraqi government since then. Most Sunnis boycotted national elections in January that put the long-suppressed Shiite majority in charge. Meanwhile, a Sunni-led insurgency appears to have become increasingly unpopular among ordinary Iraqis as the death toll from bombings and other attacks climbs.
This doesn't mean it's time to join in a chorus of Kumbaya. As Strategypage has noted before, the Sunnis think their experience in governing and conspiring means they can join the government and in ten or twenty years stage a coup and get things back to 'normal' with a Sunni dictatorship again.
Still, it is better to have the Sunnis inside the tent peeing out rather than outside peeing in.
Eventually, after we've pulled out troops into large bases to protect Iraq from foreign invasion and provide a reserve for Iraqis fighting the remnant insurgents, I imagine we'll need regular advisors attached to Iraqi units, plus Special Forces, CIA, and FBI assets spread out rooting out Baathists plotting a comeback.
We'll be in Iraq for a while. With some luck, we'll soon be out of the routine counter-insurgency business as Iraqis take the lead, and our casualties will plummet.
But by all means, keep an eye on the Sunnis. They are not newborn democrats.
