THE SUNNI PILL
So the Sunnis are on board. They’re giving the political process a chance. But most Sunnis believe they are the majority in this country and that most estimates which put Shiites at 60 percent of the population are wrong.
Unfortunately for the Sunnis, most experts don’t agree with them. Many Sunnis will likely be shocked and disappointed when the elections results are announced (one week for unofficial results, about two for the official ones) and they don’t come close to winning the majority.
Also Sunni hardliners will have to learn how to compromise. Simply put, Sunni insurgents like to get there way.
They have very clear ideas about fairness, truth, justice, honor and other virtues they extol – but compromise is not among them. I have occasionally dealt with Sunni 'resistance groups' as they call themselves in my time in Iraq (soon to be three years).
Before they started posting their videos on the internet, the militants would give them to intermediaries who would then hand them to reporters. The problem was if the reporters didn’t broadcast the video, the insurgents would then threaten to kill them and bomb their bureaus.
We never took orders from them or obeyed their threats, but all said they were not easy or pleasant to deal with. I was very happy when they discovered the internet.
If the Sunni hardliners, however, have this same unbending attitude in government – give us what we want or we will kill you and blow up your party headquarters – there might be a few problems in Iraq's democratic progress.
Cooler heads prevail
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