Rusted Sky

Politics over tribalism - could it be working?

IRAQ THE MODEL

The Sunni ignore Zarqawi and support Talabani's run for office.

Two developments took most of the interest in Iraq’s political scene today. The first is the latest audio tape of Zaqrqawi in which he urged the Iraqi Sunni parties especially the Islamic Party to abandon the political process and go back to the “right path”.

The Islamic Party didn’t need much time to voice their rejection for Zarqawi’s message and his ideology that recognizes only violence as a way to reach goals.

The 2nd man in the Islamic Party Ayad al-Samarra’i stressed that the Party has no intention to abandon the political process. Salih al-Mutlaq is another Sunni politician who apparently feels that Zarqawi was addressing him as well. Al-Mutlaq has also condemned violence again today and stressed that “ending violence is the key to stability in Iraq”.

Well, SOMEONE gets it...

What matters most about such immediate firm reactions to Zarqawi’s call is that they show that the gap between foreign terrorists like Zarqawi and Sunni Arabs in Iraq is growing wider by the day and perhaps the Sunni politicians’ decision to join Allawi and let him lead their alliance will contribute to pushing them to a more reasonable, moderate attitude rather than the relatively extreme attitude they adopted for a long time.

The second important development in Iraq today was the Kurdish decision to nominate Jalal Talabani for presidency after a period of hesitation.

Actually what is more interesting in this topic is the reactions of the Shia and Sunni parties to Talbani’s nomination. While the Kurds persistently want more powers for the new president “be it Talabani or someone else” according to Kurdish politician AbdulKhaliq Zangana, Shia and Sunni had their own ideas;

The UIA said again that extending the authorities of the president is unlikely; Adnan al-Bayati from the UIA explained their rejection of the idea of extended authorities for the president by saying that changes such as this one cannot be made by a political decision…”they require amending the constitution” al-Bayati said.

The largest Sunni bloc, the Accord Front is obviously pleased with nominating Talabani and is supportive of giving the president more powers, as Adnan al-Dulaimi expressed today. The Sunni and Kurds seem to be getting along better lately and yesterday’s meeting between the Accord Front and the Kurdish alliance has apparently succeeded in approximating their points of view.

I predict an increase in violence with this, with suicide bombers targeting funerals and markets while Zarqawi tries to show just how much he cares for the people of Iraq.

J.