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The Price of Sunni Reintegration
The main point being discussed is the degree of political and economic autonomy the Sunni tribal chiefs will be able to extract from the U.S. in exchange for their quitting their alliance with the non-Iraqi terrorist elements fighting the Americans in Iraq, most of whom are linked to al-Qaeda. The Sunnis' aim is to gain as large a slice as possible of the new Iraqi pie, not see it destroyed in an endless and unwinnable jihad against the Americans. Moreover, they have no desire to become the tail to the jihadist terrorist dog, since most Iraqi Sunnis have very little theological common ground with the fundamentalist Wahhabi strain of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia. Last week Iraqi Sunnis evicted over 100 al-Qaeda terrorists from bases near Samarra, who fled to Iran. At the same time, Iraqi Premier Allawi has begun expediting the reintegration of up to 75,000 Sunnis into the country's military establishment.