Like Mohammed, much of the Sunni Arab minority has taken heart in the recent discovery, which was announced Tuesday. The idea that the U.S. military may be trying to help the Sunnis has given them an instant boost in confidence that the parliamentary elections in December could make them players in the next government.
I've spent a long time wondering when the Sunnis would stop acting stupid and realize that their best chance to come in from the cold is while we are in Iraq to protect them from the revenge that the Shias especially wish to mete out to their former jailers and torturers. The Sunni insistence on fighting and committing more atrocities rather than grasping a chance to join the new Iraq truly amazed me.
But when an event that should have prompted me to suspect just this reaction occurred, I was so convinced that the Sunnis were still stuck on stupid that it didn't occur to me that finally some eyes might be opening.
That some eyes are opening is a surprising source of encouragement for me on the prospects of Sunnis ending their support of terrorism to restore their old neck-stomping role.
