The Iraq Sunni vote this time

NY Times:

In this town, nicknamed the City of Mosques, the scratchy loudspeakers of muezzins that once preached resistance to the American occupation implored Sunni Arabs to defy bombs and vote Sunday. They did, in a landmark election that demonstrated how far Iraq has come and perhaps how far it has to go.

The droves of Sunni Arab residents casting ballots in towns like Falluja — the name itself synonymous with the cradle of the insurgency, where relatively few voted in the last election five years ago — promised to redraw Iraq’s political landscape. The turnout delivered Sunnis their most articulated voice yet on the national stage, seven years after the American-led invasion ended their dominance.

Yet the act of their empowerment Sunday may make that landscape even more combustible, possibly even risking a revival of sectarian conflict. The demands of Sunni voters, from securing the presidency for a Sunni to diluting Iran’s influence, could make the already formidable task in Iraq of forming a coalition government even more difficult.

At polling stations near cratered buildings, past blast walls that still bore the pockmarks of bullets, the sentiments of voters who largely boycotted Iraq’s national elections in 2005 illustrated that divide.

Even as many cast ballots for the slate of Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite and former prime minister, they condemned religious Shiite parties. With the invective once reserved for Americans, voters now attacked Iran, seen here as the patron of Iraq’s Shiite-led government.

“There’s no more war, it’s true, but we’re still not free,” Riyadh Khalaf, 47, a laborer, said as he stood near a polling station in the neighborhood of Andalus, where distant bombings reverberated through the morning. “We have an American occupation and an Iranian administration.”

A civil defense worker, Raad Mustafa, shouted, “We have to save our country.”

Ammar Ali, a police officer, interrupted them.

“We want someone who lives with us, someone who is from Iraq,” he said, carrying his rifle. “We don’t want the politicians who spend the night in Iran.”

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Politics in Anbar are not for the faint-hearted. They tend toward the nasty, brutish and loud, where even nuances are conveyed as shouts. The governor lost his hand in an attack in December. A candidate near Falluja talked of the 11 attempts on his life as he might about car wrecks. Unfortunate, but they happen.

Nevertheless, in Anbar, as in predominantly Sunni regions elsewhere, politics have become far more diverse since the days when the Iraqi Islamic Party, a descendant of the venerable Muslim Brotherhood, dominated the regions. Since 2009, the province’s other currents — neo-Baathist and tribal — have rallied around lists loyal to Mr. Allawi and Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani, another secular Shiite.

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I think Alawi would be a better leader than the religious Shia, but there are not enough Sunnis to carry the day for him. He is going to have to draw from secular Shia voters and hope to put together a coalition of other parties to get a piece of the government. During last year's election Maliki did well across the board and it would not surprise me if he does so again in this election.

Getting the Sunnis involved shows the progress of democracy in Iraq. It shows there is hope for Democracy in the region. It is more than ironic that they have embraced George Bush's vision for the country of Iraq.