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BAGHDAD, Iraq - (KRT) - While American officials
point to the bargaining among Shiite Muslim and
Kurdish politicians over an interim Iraqi government
as evidence that democracy is taking hold in Iraq,
some Iraqi analysts and politicians are increasingly
worried about the group that's missing from the
equation: Sunni Muslims.
Almost two months after national elections, Iraq's
Sunni minority remains fragmented and largely
alienated from the horse-trading. If that continues,
the group that's long dominated Iraq could find
itself shut out of December's prime ministerial
election as it was on January 30, when Sunnis won
only a few seats in Iraq's new parliament.
Lawmakers had planned to meet this weekend to form a
coalition government that's expected to be dominated
by Shiites and Kurds, but the session was postponed
at least until Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the largely Sunni insurgency continued as
a car bomb killed two American soldiers in Baghdad
on Saturday, and U.S. military officials reported
that a Marine was killed on Friday in al Anbar
province in Iraq's Sunni heartland. Officials also
reported Saturday that on Thursday, U.S. troops
found a large escape tunnel at Camp Bucca, which
holds 6,049 Iraqi detainees. The officials said no
prisoners had escaped before the hand-dug tunnel was
discovered.
Politicians and analysts in Iraq agree that the
insurgency could broaden and intensify, and perhaps
even threaten civil war, if mainstream Sunnis
continue to feel disenfranchised.
"A defiant Sunni population would be dangerous,"
said Mazen al Ramadhani, a political science analyst
and professor at Baghdad University.
While Sunnis make up some 20 percent of Iraq's
population, they comprise most of its bureaucratic,
technological and military elite, largely because of
favoritism by former dictator Saddam Hussein,
himself a Sunni.
"Our presence and representation in the next
government is an important and necessary thing to
stabilize this country," said Hassan al Hashimy, an
official with the Iraqi Islamic Party, a main Sunni
group.
Jawad Talib, a senior advisor to the presumptive
Shiite prime minister, Ibrahim al Haafari, agreed.
"If they don't participate, it will destabilize the
country," he said. "I hope that the Sunni clerics
won't submit to the terrorists."
In many predominantly Sunni areas, however, Sunni
religious organizations called for a boycott of the
Jan. 30 elections, and poor security made voting
difficult. In al Anbar province, voter turnout was
in the single digits.
There have been several attempts to gather the Sunni
factions at the table and draft a common platform,
but the effort has been plagued by disagreements
between Sunnis willing to join the political process
and those who dismiss it as a sham.
Now there are signs that some Sunni groups may be
digging in their heels.
Leaders of the Muslim Scholars Association, an
influential group of hard-line clerics that called
for a boycott in January, continue to denounce the
bargaining over a new government as an American
fabrication.
A conference last week intended to bring major Sunni
parties together was poorly attended, and the
scholar's association representative used it to rail
against the U.S. presence in Iraq and anything
connected to it.
"We held the conference for the Sunni people after
we started to feel that the sectarian divide is
widening and after we realized that we're about to
be marginalized," he said before putting in a good
word for the Sunni-led insurgency. "There are bad
intentions to distort the reputation of the true,
honorable resistance, which should be a crown on the
heads of all Iraqis. This resistance is a legal act
according to all the religions."
Some Sunni leaders have floated the idea of creating
a federation of three Sunni provinces, which, under
a clause in the nation's transitional law, could
veto any constitution passed by the Shiite- and
Kurdish-dominated assembly. But even that's been
stymied by infighting among Sunni politicians and
tribal sheikhs, some of whom consider any political
engagement, even a veto, a tacit acknowledgement of
the government's legitimacy.
The naming of the new transitional government,
negotiated by the Shiites and Kurds, appears likely
to exacerbate the situation. Although the Kurds -
who are Sunnis but identify primarily with their
Kurdish ethnicity - are also about 20 percent of the
population, they mounted a massive get-out-the-vote
drive and gained significant leverage with the
Shiite majority.
Before the horse-trading even began, the Kurds
demanded and got the presidency. They Kurds
reportedly have backed down from their demand for
control over the oil-rich Kirkuk area, an issue that
will be decided later in a local referendum - which
the Kurds also appear likely to dominate.
Muayad Dulame, a Sunni barber in Baghdad, said he
worried that the Sunnis are falling further and
further behind.
Sitting in a restaurant next to his shop, Dulame
said he hoped that Iraq wouldn't go the way of
Lebanon, where a 15-year civil war killed thousands.
"We shouldn't be like Lebanon, where the Sunnis,
Shiite and Christians are all divided," he said.
"But every time we hear the news, we hear that a
Sunni mosque was hit; a Shiite mosque was hit; a
Sunni sheikh was killed; a Shiite sheikh was
killed."
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