BAQUBAH, IRAQ — Abu Mujahid brags that he bombed a U.S. Army Humvee and wounded two American soldiers just last month. Now he's stumping for Sunni candidates and talking matter-of-factly about the importance of safety as Iraqis head to the polls today.
"This is something like a truce so the elections will be implemented in a secure environment," said Abu Mujahid, an active member of the 1920 Revolution Brigades, an armed Sunni Arab group. "We want to allow people to vote and let them decide without pressure from any groups."
With one foot in the political process and the other firmly rooted in violence, fighters such as Abu Mujahid offer a glimpse of the Sunni community's evolution over the last five years: from waging guerrilla war against Iraq's ascendant Shiite Muslim majority and its U.S. backers, to tentatively embracing electoral politics.
Abu Mujahid's ambivalence illustrates how the decision to buy in to Iraq's fragile democracy is hardly irreversible -- that the gun is still seen as a viable tool for effecting change.
"When U.S. forces leave and these guys feel they have made no headway via elections and U.S. attempts at strong-arming [Shiite political leaders], they may well revert to violence," said Joost Hiltermann, an Iraq expert with the International Crisis Group. "For them, it's all about the identity and future of Iraq and their role in it; they will not accept being cut out."
The attitudes vary from province to province, but the general outlook of armed Sunni groups represents a sea change from local and national elections in January 2005, when insurgents threatened their communities with death if they voted. In Baghdad, former insurgents have signed on to slates with established Sunni parties. In places such as Baqubah and Samarra, once synonymous with the Sunni revolt, armed groups have endorsed candidates.
Shiite politicians, alarmed by the participation of Sunni armed groups, worry that militants want to win jobs inside the government so they can destroy the country's new order.
"Unfortunately . . . we find many figures who are suspected of or accused of sectarian killings," parliament member Taha Dira Dahan said. The Shiite lawmaker warned that these candidates stopped killing and displacing Shiite families only when the Iraqi government grew strong. He put the number of suspicious candidates here in Diyala province at 20.
