BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki traveled to Anbar province, a visit that three years ago would have been considered a suicide mission into the cradle of the Sunni Arab resistance.
Now the Shiite Muslim leader, famously mistrustful of the sect that dominated Iraq during Saddam Hussein's reign, was huddling with the head of the ruling Sunni coalition in Anbar, talking of the need to cut across sectarian lines in upcoming national elections.
Perhaps just as surprisingly, Maliki's words were received favorably by tribesmen. "Prime Minister Nouri Maliki is patriotic and able to lead Iraq," said provincial council member Arkan Khalaf Tarmouz, who attended the meeting two weeks ago. "It is possible to ally with him in a national coalition."
Hours later on state television, the prime minister delivered a similar message, calling for an end to the divisions that have shaped the country since 2003. "Alliances based on national, ethnic and sectarian lines should end, and the substitute will be the 'national coalition,' " Maliki said.
The steps toward rapprochement have enormous implications: Although it is far from a sure thing, if new parties or alliances emerge that soften communal boundaries and play upon shared interests, Iraq could take a major step away from the bloodshed of recent years.
The new direction points to a general wish among Iraqis, weary after civil war and sectarian political battles, to limit religion's role in public life. Maliki, who is to meet with President Obama in Washington on Wednesday, has regularly tapped such sentiment, scolding the religious and ethnic blocs in the government. Emboldened by his victory in January provincial elections, in which he ran candidates on the strength of Iraq's security gains and mostly eschewed religious imagery, he has called for a way forward that will win the passage of key legislation, from an oil law to revisions of the constitution.
The difference in language of onetime political foes such as Maliki and lawmaker Saleh Mutlak, a former member of Hussein's Baath Party, is at times minuscule. Across the political spectrum, groups are starting to use the nationalist language of the Hussein years -- without the baggage of the former dictator.
"People want rulers representing them as Iraqis, not according to their affiliations or sects. They want people to work for Iraq and Iraqis," said political scientist Nabil Mohammed Salim, a professor at Baghdad University.
