Sunni Clerics in Iraq Authorize Joining the Military and Police

There is a development in Iraq that could have a positive effect. It appears that Sistani has been busy behind the scenes talking to Sunni clerics. They have issued effectively a joint fatwa encouraging cooperation and joining the Iraqi military and police to secure the Country. Now the purely secular Iraqi's in the insurgency and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may find themselves very much alone. Here is a quote from Juan Cole at Informed Comment.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani gave a fatwa Friday saying that cooperation with the forces charged with safeguarding security in Iraq is "obligatory" on all Iraqis, "as long as the principles of Islamic law are observed."

[...}
At the same time, 64 Sunni clerics gave a fatwa that for Iraqis to join the military and police is permitted. Indeed, they called for Iraqis to join these forces, saying that they are national in character and not a militia pertaining to a particular sect. The signatories included prominent members of the Association of Muslim Scholars and the Iraqi Islamic Party, including Shaikh Abd al-Ghafur al-Samarra'i, the prayer leader at the Umm al-Qura Mosque in Baghdad, Shaikh Ahmad Hasan al-Taha, leader of the Abu Hanifa mosque and a member of AMS, and Shaikh Ziyad Mahmud al-Ani, rector of the Islamic College in Baghdad and a member if the IIP.
Unlike Sistani's this ruling does potentially change things. The Sunni clerics seem to have figured out that boycotting the new government is just a form of self-marginalization, and if Sunnis aren't in the army and police, then those forces will be largely Shiite and Kurdish.