Juan Cole: What Do Iraq’s Sunni Arabs Have in Common with Ferguson, Mo. African-Americans?

[marmar]

What Do Iraq’s Sunni Arabs Have in Common with Ferguson, Mo. African-Americans?

Posted on Aug 21, 2014
By Juan Cole


If prime minister-designate Haidar al-Abadi in Iraq is to hope to defeat the so-called “Islamic State” (actually a kind of mafia made up of serial murderers and marauders), he must find a way to re-incorporate Iraq’s Sunni Arabs into the government, which has been dominated by Shiite religious parties since 2005, partly because of Neoconservative U.S. preference for Arab Shiite rule under the Bush occupation.

Al-Abadi has succeeded in getting a pledge from the largely separatist Sunni Kurds to hold off on leaving Iraq and to participate in his government at the cabinet and parliamentary level in Baghdad. (Kurdistan is an ethnic super-province a little like French-speaking Quebec in Canada, but with much more autonomy from the central government; Kurdistan president Masoud Barzani has threatened to hold a referendum within six months on complete secession and independence).

A Sunni Arab political bloc, al-Hall (“Solution”), led by Jamal al-Karbuli has sent a letter to al-Abadi detailing their demands. Al-Karbuli (or al-Karbouli) had led a faction within the old Iraqiya party coalition which has been the main vehicle of Sunni parliamentary politics in recent years. He blames Iraq violence and bombings on Shiite Iran.

They want the thousands of Sunni Arab detainees (accused of anti-government activity by outgoing prime minister Nouri al-Maliki) given an amnesty;

They want a fair distribution of cabinet seats and government jobs (the only kind of reliable jobs there really are in Iraq) with regard to the Sunni Arabs, tens of thousands of which were fired in the past decade and replaced with Shiites; ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/what_do_iraqs_sunni_arabs_share_with_ferguson_mo_african-americans_20140821

[GeorgeGist]

1. More importantly ...

the Sunni arabs in Iraq and Saudi Arabia need to get off their asses and help purge IS from THEIR ranks.

[xchrom]

2. du rec.