The fallout from appointing a Sunni as defense minister in the new government includes a surge in military enlistments among Sunnis. Arthur Chrenkoff has the story:
After the Iraqi government confirmed the appointment of a Sunni in the position of defense minister. Iraqi Arab Sunnis started heading for the army enlisting centers to join the new Iraqi Army. This was evident by the long lines and large crowds of young men outside these centers in the largely Sunni area of Baghdad. This is the main reason for the increase in the terrorist activities in and around these centers.
The high unemployment amongst the Sunnis is due to non-participation in the electoral and governmental process. This is due to their religious leaders forbidding them from joining the government and the security forces in the past. This situation has now changed. We witnessed thousands of Iraqi Arab Sunnis coming from different provinces to military enlisting station in Baghdad.
Ahmend Mahmud, age 30, from Aathamiah came to the enlisting office to join the new Iraqi military. "I came because I desire to join in protecting the peace and my country," he said. Adnan Hussein from Meqdadieh who was in the old Army said; "Since the fall of the old regime I had no employment to feed my kids, thus I decided to join the new military, which pays a decent wage, and I heard a number of (Sunni) religious leaders call for us to join the new army". Luaai Ahmed from Aathamiah said, "I voluntarily enlisted in the new military because I wanted to and upon advise from my relatives".
Chrenkoff concludes with this observation: "The Sunni involvement in the new government and new security forces is a nightmare scenario both for the neo-Baathist insurgents and Al Zarqawi's jihadis - it means the loss of their only constituency."
We are not at the end of this struggle, but all indications are that we are moving in the right direction. We suspect that if Zarqawi has been captured or killed the morale of the insurgents, which is already very low, will hit rock bottom and thousands of them will just pack it in. The foreign fighters, too, will look for other ways to fight their jihad against a foe that they might be able to defeat at least on occasion. We'll see, perhaps soon.
