BAGHDAD, Feb. 4 -- Influential Sunni Arab leaders of a boycott of last Sunday's elections expressed a new willingness Friday to engage the coming Iraqi government and play a role in writing the constitution, in what may represent a strategic shift in thinking among mainstream anti-occupation groups.
The signs remain tentative, and even advocates of such change suggest that much will depend on the posture the new government takes toward the insurgency and the removal of former Baath Party officials from state institutions. But in statements and interviews, some Sunni leaders said the sectarian tension that surged ahead of the vote had forced them to rethink their stance.
A man in Baghdad studies a newspaper featuring President Ghazi Yawar, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and Sunni politician Adnan Pachachi.
(Mohammed Uraibi -- AP)
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Iraqis voted Sunday for seats in a 275-member transitional parliament, which will appoint the government and draft the constitution this year. In all likelihood, the parliament will be dominated by members of the country's Shiite Arab majority and by ethnic Kurdish Sunnis from northern Iraq, leaving Sunni Arabs and others who oppose the presence of foreign troops in Iraq with little representation.
"We are taking a conciliatory line because we are frightened that things may develop into a civil war," said Wamidh Nadhmi, the leader of the Arab Nationalist Trend and a spokesman for a coalition of Sunni and Shiite groups that boycotted the election. "The two sides have come to a conclusion that they have to respect the other side if they want a unified Iraq."
He cautioned, however, that "perhaps it will not succeed."
The Association of Muslim Scholars, one of the most influential groups, sent mixed signals this week -- saying it would respect the election results, while arguing that the new government will lack the legitimacy to draft a constitution. But the sermon Friday at the association's headquarters, the Um al-Qura mosque, was decidedly conciliatory. Directing most of his words at the new government, the preacher called Iraq its "trusteeship" and said the people's welfare was "a great responsibility on your shoulders."
A meeting Thursday at the home of a Sunni elder statesman that brought together some largely Sunni groups, including those that boycotted the elections, produced an agreement to participate in drafting the constitution, "without condition," said Nadhmi, one of those in attendance. A spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party, which withdrew from Sunday's vote but still was listed on the ballot, said its members would not enter parliament but that the party would not object if independent candidates who were included on its list took seats.
"We're getting the same vibes," a Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
"It's my sense that there are a number of people in the Sunni community that are trying to build consensus in that community that . . . participation in the political process would be to the best advantage of the Sunni Arab community," the diplomat said.
A decision by Sunni Muslim and other anti-occupation groups to engage the new government and help draft the constitution would mark one of the most important shifts in Iraq since Saddam Hussein's fall in April 2003. In the subsequent 22 months, the country's tumultuous politics have often broken down between groups willing to take part in a U.S.-led process and those opposed to participation as long as the U.S. military occupied the country. While the opponents largely came from the Sunni minority, long the country's most powerful sect, they also included followers of a militant Shiite Muslim cleric, Moqtada Sadr.
The shift in thinking appears to have arisen from a calculation that the election may have created a new dynamic in Iraq, as the country slowly moves past an emphasis on the U.S. occupation and more toward the blueprint of a future state. The groups do not speak for the insurgency, but the Association of Muslim Scholars, in particular, holds great sway in the Sunni Arab community in central and western Iraq, where there are signs of grass-roots discontent over the boycott.
As part of the dialogue, the community appears to be formulating concrete political demands that were often missing before. Those demands center on the presence of 150,000 U.S. troops in the country and the date of their departure.
"What we're asking for is a conditional timetable," said Ayad Samarrai, a spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party.
"It's not rigid and it's not impossible to achieve," he said at the party's headquarters, echoing statements made this week by the Association of Muslim Scholars and Nadhmi's group. "We take into consideration that some delay might happen, but at least if we have a plan, we can have the confidence of the people that we are working toward this goal."
