TRUDY RUBIN U.S. must win over Sunnis in Iraq

Those who are wondering when the United States can draw down its troop levels in Iraq should pay close attention to the details of Iraqi elections set for Jan. 30.
The Pentagon just announced it is boosting troop levels to 150,000, the highest since the start of the U.S. occupation. The main reason: A virulent Iraqi insurgency continues to destabilize the country, despite the U.S. crackdown on Fallujah. More U.S. troops are needed to try to curb the violence before the vote.
Troop numbers will shrink only if the elections channel Iraqi energies into the political arena and cut back the numbers of Iraqis who aid the insurgents. This holds especially true for Sunni Arabs, a privileged minority under Saddam Hussein that provides the active core of the insurgency and many tacit supporters.
Right now, many Sunni groups plan to boycott the elections. Some U.S. pundits say a Sunni boycott doesn't matter because Sunnis compose only 20 percent of the population (Kurds make up around 15 to 20 percent, and Shiites another 55 to 60 percent). Sorry, the Sunni vote matters a great deal.
Legitimacy
If Sunnis don't vote, the new legislature will lack legitimacy; so will the constitution it is supposed to draft. The Sunni insurgency will keep destabilizing the country. Iraq will drift toward civil war.
So the immediate question is how U.S. and Iraqi government officials can woo the many Sunni tribal leaders -- and ex-Baathists still sitting on the fence -- and separate them from the hard-core Sunni rebels.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has met with many Sunni leaders, but so far they haven't come on board. Some are intimidated, some unsure whether they have a future in an Iraq dominated by Shiites.
As I wrote a year ago from Iraq, many Sunni leaders were ready to be wooed, or bought, by U.S. officials, but top civilian officials at the Pentagon never developed a coherent Sunni strategy to win them over. Now it is much harder.
How then, can these Sunni undecideds be brought into the political game?
Some moderate Sunni leaders have suggested postponing elections until more Sunni groups can be persuaded to take part and the country is stable. This is not feasible. A postponement would reward those trying to prevent the voting by violence; that won't stop if the election date is put off.
But there is a more urgent reason to keep the January date. The senior Shiite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, won't accept a delay. And U.S. officials, along with Allawi, can't afford to alienate this crucial cleric.
Sistani has tolerated the U.S. military presence because he wants the Americans to shepherd Iraq to elections that he believes the majority Shiites will win. He wanted elections sooner. If there is a delay, Sistani could send millions of followers to the streets.
What, then, is the best way forward? I asked Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution. He spent three months in Iraq advising the occupation authority on the political transition. Diamond's swift response: "Change the electoral system" according to which the Iraqi elections will be held.
Electoral district
At present, those elections treat Iraq as one big electoral district. No candidates will be elected from geographical districts, like the congressional districts in the United States.
Diamond suggests that the electoral system be revised to include multiple districts based on provinces. "You could go forward with elections on a rolling basis," he says, holding elections first in those provinces that were ready. If Sunni provinces didn't want to vote now, a later date could be set for their participation.
"You would make clear that the Sunnis wouldn't be disenfranchised," Diamond says. "The interim government would hold off on the constitutional convention until they took part."
Once other provinces voted, Sunni leaders would see that the political show was on the road. Many of them might then feel impelled to take part and organize parties, rather than leave the political system primarily to Shiites and Kurds. Electing representatives from their own provinces might make them feel better served.
It's time for more creative thinking about how to conduct Iraqi elections. Otherwise, don't expect to see U.S. troop drawdowns anytime soon.
X Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by Knight/Ridder Tribune.