Word: sunnis
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...given day just a few months ago, the northern city of Mosul was a noisy place. Sunni insurgents who'd settled in Mosul were keeping up almost daily attacks against Iraqi and U.S. forces in the area. Car bombs and mortars shook the air most afternoons. And at night gunfire often crackled as American and Iraqi troops conducted raids on suspected insurgent hideouts in the dark...
...this fight since November 2006, when Shi'ite parties walked out of Siniora's coalition Cabinet. Although Lebanon is a democracy, the legitimacy of its government depends on a system of sectarian quotas; without the Shi'ites--the country's largest, fastest-growing group--the Prime Minister, a Sunni, has lacked both validity and street cred. The Shi'ites' price for returning: a greater share of power, including the right to veto major decisions. Siniora and other pro-U.S. members of his coalition have thus far refused, fearing among other things that such power would legitimize Hizballah's status...
...formal negotiations, but a real cease-fire - for starters, the end of rocket attacks from Gaza. Meanwhile, the unofficial contacts that people like Malley have with Hamas are extremely valuable. They are the avatars of negotiation. In Iraq, the U.S. military has had quiet talks with everyone from the Sunni insurgents in Fallujah in 2004 to the "special groups" in Sadr City today. Our European partners meet surreptitiously with Hamas - the British diplomat Sir Jeremy Greenstock has publicly acknowledged having such meetings. Furthermore, talks with Hamas have been advocated by a broad swath of notable Israelis - including a former head...
...gesture seems to have fallen flat. The National Accordance Front still appears uninterested in getting involved in a Maliki government. No doubt part of that calculation has much to do with lingering disputes between the two camps, such as over the fate of thousands of Sunni detainees in Iraqi jails the National Accordance Front wants freed. But a new reality is emerging that may factor into the thinking of potential political allies the Prime Minister is courting: Maliki is looking more and more like a lame duck as October elections in Iraq approach...
What little political capital Maliki's hobbled and isolated government holds is likely to dwindle in the upcoming provincial elections, which both the Sadrists and the Sunni factions hope to capitalize on. By and large both camps stayed away from the last elections in 2005. But since then both the Sadrists and various Sunni factions have displayed a new interest in gathering political power at the polls even while keeping a hand in Iraq's ongoing violence. The Sadrists are poised to win broadly in southern Iraq, while members of the Sunni Awakening Council will likely clinch victories in Anbar...