Liberty's Blog

Positive Signs

While some leftist are demanding we pack up and leave, and conservatives are expounding on all the reasons we must stay in the war. It looks more and more like we are winning, and that we might be able to start pulling out pretty soon.

In a move unthinkable in the bloody run-up to the last election, guerrillas in the western insurgent heartland of Anbar province say they are even prepared to protect voting stations from fighters loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq

Graffiti calling for holy war is now hard to find.

Instead, election campaign posters dominate buildings in the rebel strongholds of Ramadi and nearby Falluja, where Sunnis staged a boycott or were too scared to vote last time around.

"We want to see a nationalist government that will have a balance of interests. So our Sunni brothers will be safe when they vote," said Falluja resident Ali Mahmoud, a former army officer and rocket specialist under Saddam's Baath party.

"Sunnis should vote to make political gains. We have sent leaflets telling al Qaeda that they will face us if they attack voters."

It's not as though these guys are seeing us their saviours. They figured it out its in their interest to have input into their own goverment, and the quicker it is stabilized the quicker we are out of the way.

Former Baathists who have embraced militant Islam, like Jassim Abu Bakr, are still fiercely opposed to U.S.-backed leaders and say any Sunni politicians who move too close to them will lose their support.

"We are telling Sunnis that they have to vote for nationalist parties and even if they win we will be watching very closely to keep them in line," said the Falluja militant, 28.

In Falluja, renowned as Iraq's "City of Mosques," Sunni Muslim spiritual leaders made clear there would be no repeat of the boycott of January's election which left their minority angrily marginalised.

Fiery speeches delivered in Friday prayers have been toned down, with increasing calls for Sunnis to vote.

Iraq's election commission said on Sunday there would be 154 polling stations open in Anbar next Thursday, far more than in the election in January. Eighty-four of them will be in Falluja and the surrounding area, it said.

Most election posters back two Sunni politicians, Saleh Mutlak and Adnan al-Duliami. Iyad Allawi, a secular Shi'ite and former prime minister who ordered a U.S.-led offensive that devastated Falluja last year, has some appeal, insurgents said.

The influential Sunni Muslim Scholars Association urged their large community to boycott the "illegal" polls in January.

Nearly one year on, the group has so far been officially neutral but some of its members have called participation in the polls a "religious duty."

Now the big "if". If they can pull off this election peacefully, Iraqis should be able to quickly gain control of their country, and they should be able stiffle the insugents on their own. The Iraqis understand that if they want their own goverment and, not an American puppet regime, that its up to them to reach out and take it for themselves.

But Saddam loyalists have turned against Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant whose fighters travel to Iraq from across the Arab world to blow themselves up in a bid to spark sectarian civil war.

"Zarqawi is an American, Israeli and Iranian agent who is trying to keep our country unstable so that the Sunnis will keep facing occupation," said a Baathist insurgent leader who would give his name only as Abu Abdullah.

The old Bathist might never be crazy about us, but as long as they recognize the insurgents and terrorist as bad they will do alright.

posted by Liberty @ 6:49 PM