He hit me back first!

[jurph]

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A major Sunni Arab bloc Thursday suspended talks with Shiite and Kurdish parties on a new government after scores of Sunni mosques were attacked and dozens of bodies found in a wave of reprisal violence following the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine.
Memo to Iraqi Sunnis

Comments

[agelade]

haha, getting the hell out of d'hajj.

[enth]

I think you've fallen into the trap that a very few terrorists have set -- believing that their actions are the actions of the Sunni minority. Sure, Zarqawi's biggest backers have been Sunni all along, and they have played plenty of political hardball for a minority faction during the constitutional process. However, while I am not a Middle East analyst myself, I have a feeling that virtually all Sunnis on the street, ex-Baathists or not, sincerely do not want a hot war with the Shiite majority. In the six months after the US invasion maybe it would have been more acceptable, but after enough years without, you know, electricity, water, or peace, I just can't imagine that the More War Now position is very popular.

[jurph]

I don't think the majority of Sunnis want that, either. But I also think that walking away from the table is a deeply stupid reaction to the Shiite response to the (probably Sunni) terrorists' actions. If the Sunnis walk away now, they lose whatever chance they had at gaining a voice in government. A smarter move would be to say "Let's speed up these talks, so that we can both form an effective government and help stop the violence that we are all so sick of. The sooner we have an effective government, the sooner the Americans will leave."

Yes, I think that the terrorists are a minority among the Sunni minority. But the Sunni political representation should be emphasizing that point, not playing into the terrorists' hands by sulking.