Word: sunni
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...just hours earlier on Monday night, the community had heard the announcement that Ramadan was officially over. This was greeted by volleys of celebratory gunfire, in the Iraqi tradition. The end of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, is announced by religious seaders upon sighting of the auspicious moon. Sunni leaders made their announcement on Sunday night; typically, Shi'ites follow 24 hours later...
...that attitude seems churlish, remember that the lockdown is just the latest in a long line of setbacks they have endured this year. Just this summer alone, Karrada witnessed several car-bomb and mortar attacks, most of them blamed on Sunni insurgents and jihadi groups. Each time, the district has shaken off the debris and gotten back to business. But the damage to their business is crippling, say shopkeepers...
...finally had enough. In a press conference in Baghdad today, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and General George Casey announced that the Iraqi government has agreed to a timeline to take over security responsibilities, quell sectarian violence, split oil revenues and negotiate a truce with the Sunni insurgents. According to Khalilzad and Casey, it will all take place within 18 months. And how does anyone know the Iraqis can achieve all that? Because we say they have to. "Iraqi leaders must step up," Khalilzad says, "to achieve key political and security milestones on which they have agreed...
...said that the U.S. has set far too many conditions for diplomacy-particularly in negotiations with rogue states like Iran and Syria-and needs to engage in diplomacy for its own sake. Haass said a regional forum was also needed because of the growing "militiaization" of the former Sunni state-a factor he said was growing in intensity. He said Washington will need the Syrians to help quell their clients in Iraq, Iran to shut down its operatives and so forth. Would it work? "It's worth a try," he said...
...Sunni insurgency has successfully prevented the U.S. and its allies from stabilizing even Baghdad beyond the Green Zone, but it can never hope to restore the control that Saddam Hussein once had over the whole country. The Shi'ites are the dominant force in the elected government and have more men under arms (in their militias and in the government security forces) than do the Sunnis, but the Shi'ites are not really aligned with the U.S. (If anything, they're closer to Iran.) And as the U.S. has pushed back against the Shi'ites in the hope of dimming...