The one thing I really feared about the necessary cleaning out of Falluja was that it might spawn a national uprising. It didn’t. The good news is obvious; the worrying news is that the ethnic divisions of Iraq may be reasserting themselves, as the Kurds and Shi’a happily watch the Sunnis get clobbered. Still, it seems to me the good news outweighs the worries. Yes, we may now have a situation in which the Sunnis boycott the January elections. So be it. That would be preferable to a postonement; and preferable to restricting the elections to the Shiite and Kurdish areas. Juan Cole suggests the following emergency idea:
If elections are held in January, I see only one way to avoid disaster. This would be some sort of emergency decree by the current government that sets aside, say, 20% of seats in parliament for the Sunni Arabs. This procedure would seat Sunni Arab candidates in order of the popularity of their lists and in order of their rank within the lists on which they run. But the results would essentially be “graded on a curve.” In a way, this procedure is already being followed for women, who are guaranteed 30% of seats. This solution is Lebanon-like and is not optimal, but it might be the best course if long-term sectarian and ethnic conflict is to be avoided. Remember, the first thing the new parliament will do is craft a permanent constitution. You want Sunni Arabs sitting at that table, or else.
Maybe insisting that elections will happen and that this will be the fallback may tempt a few more Sunnis to participate. But that will be up to them.
The Dish 