Turnabout

Political news from Iraq:

In what might be a sign of a new political landscape, a major Sunni umbrella group called on its members on Monday to register for the next round of elections and take part "despite our reservations."

Adnan al-Dulaimi, the head of the group, called the Sunni Endowment, said in a briefing in Baghdad that clerics would be asked to issue fatwas, or religious rulings, essentially ordering Sunnis to vote in elections. Among its other functions, the Sunni Endowment is charged with oversight of Sunni Arab mosques and holy sites throughout Iraq, giving it wide influence among clerics.

"I ask all Sunni people to register their names for the next election, because we are in a political battle that depends on the vote," he said.

Sunni Arabs largely boycotted the January elections, producing a National Assembly with only a handful of Sunnis, leaving the ethnic group that ruled the country until 2003 with little influence in the government.

The next round of voting will include a referendum on a constitution, a document being hammered out in the National Assembly.

Perhaps as significant as his call for voting, Mr. Dulaimi explicitly renounced violence as a way for the Sunnis to regain power. Mr. Dulaimi's group, like many other Sunni groups, insists that Sunnis are not a minority in Iraq, despite various estimates suggesting that they make up about 20 percent of the population.

Wasn't it just last winter when the landed punditry was saying the Sunnis were out for good, and that civil war was inevitable?

Why yes. Yes it was.

Posted by Mitch at July 8, 2005 04:02 AM | TrackBack