Les Jones

News > Sunnis Now Wish They Had Participated In Iraq Elections

The Sunnis were the ruling minority during Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, and Hussein himself is Sunni. Prior to the elections, some liberal pundits thought the Iraq elections wouldn't be legitimate if the 20% Sunni minority didn't come out and vote. As James Taranto noted, this is analogous to saying that elections in South Africa aren't legitimate unless the minority white Afrikaaners who used to be in charge didn't come out to vote.

That viewpoint never made sense, except to people who didn't want Iraqi elections (and by extension, George Bush) to succeed. If the former ruling minority didn't want to vote, it's their loss, and now they've realized it. Iraqi Sunnis Finally Get The Hint: "We can't say it was wise or logical to not participate; it was an emotional decision," said Mr Samaray. "Now the Sunni community faces the fact that it made a big mistake and that it would have been far better to participate."

I don't think the decision to boycott the election was entirely emotional. I suspect the Sunnis believed the polling places would be attacked and the elections disrupted. The successful elections have proven the mostly-Sunni insurgency to be much less powerful than the Sunnis believed. Now that their bullets failed them, they're ready to fall back on ballots.