Sunnis in Iraq

[Right of Center]

They were hugely outnumbered, but they made a deal with the devil and now the bill’s come due.

“Its not a good time to be a Sunni in Baghdad,” Abu Omar told me in a low voice…

He was more despondent than angry. “We Sunni are to blame,” he said. “In my area some ignorant al-Qaida guys have been kidnapping poor Shia farmers, killing them and throwing their bodies in the river. I told them: ‘This is not jihad. You can’t kill all the Shia! This is wrong! The Shia militias are like rabid dogs - why provoke them?’ ”

Then he said: “I am trying to talk to the Americans. I want to give them assurances that no one will attack them in our area if they stop the Shia militias from coming.”

This man who had spent the last three years fighting the Americans was now willing to talk to them, not because he wanted to make peace but because he saw the Americans as the lesser of two evils. He was wrestling with the same dilemma as many Sunni insurgent leaders, beginning to doubt the wisdom of their alliance with al-Qaida extremists.

That conversation happened in October; Abu Omar has long since disappeared, according to the author, but the second-guessing remains. A new local jihadi commander told him that U.S. troops are now allowed to pass through Sunni territory unharmed unless they have Iraqi army (i.e., Shiite) troops with them. “The jihad now is against the Shia, not the Americans,” he says.

For the rest of the link...
In hindsight, Sunni jihadis not sure killing Shiites was such a good idea; Update: Mahdi Army lowers its profile

[The_Genius]

I'm embarassed by the attitude of my fellow Sunni brothers...

I hope they realize that the real enemy is indeed USA since Shias and Sunnis didn't fight as muh as they do now before the US invasion...

[RickSp]

This should be a surprise to no one. Sunnis have ruled Iraq since the 1500s. And the civil war that we are now in the middle of was predicted over and over again before Bush invaded. Of course the neo-cons never listen.

How predictions for Iraq came true

It was a few weeks before the invasion of Iraq, three years ago. I was interviewing the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, in the ballroom of a big hotel in Cairo. Shrewd, amusing, bulky in his superb white robes, he described to me all the disasters he was certain would follow the invasion. The US and British troops would be bogged down in Iraq for years. There would be civil war between Sunnis and Shias. The real beneficiary would be the government in Iran. "And what do the Americans say when you tell them this," I asked? "They don't even listen," he said.

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: The_Genius I'm embarassed by the attitude of my fellow Sunni brothers... I hope they realize that the real enemy is indeed USA since Shias and Sunnis didn't fight as muh as they do now before the US invasion...

Before the invasion, didn't they have a dictator KEEPING them from fighting?