Major Sunni Parties Position to Join the December Elections

Perhaps Sunni leaders in Iraq don't want a civil war. Truly, if they did, they could have one. All they really have to do is not participate in the elections. These leaders are putting themselves in the line of fire. Islamic fundamentalist insurgents will target their leadership. Many of those standing up now, may not survive the next month.
New York Times

Leaders of three Sunni political parties joined together Wednesday to compete in the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections, a sign that the country's embittered Sunni Arab minority might play a more active role in the democratic process.


The alliance, the Iraqi Concord Front, will field candidates in the elections for a new National Assembly and work as a bloc to advance Sunni interests, said leaders of the three groups involved: the Iraqi Islamic Party, the National Dialogue Council and the Iraqi People's Gathering. The leaders' statements suggested that they harbored large ambitions, including the leadership of all of Iraq's estimated five million Sunni Arabs.

[...]
The unveiling of the Iraqi Concord Front on Wednesday suggested that at least some Sunni leaders, even some who opposed the constitution, might be willing to give the process a try. Two of the three parties in the coalition opposed the constitution. The Iraqi Islamic Party was the only major Sunni Arab group to support it.

[...]
Still, some prominent Sunni leaders refused to join the alliance, among them members of the National Dialogue Council. Some of them said they were planning on forming their own coalition. One was Saleh Mutlaq, who became the most vocal Sunni opponent of the constitution this summer. Mr. Mutlaq, a member of the National Dialogue Council, said he intended to join another coalition that included Iraqi leaders of all ethnicities and sects.


But Mr. Mutlaq said his biggest concern was whether the Sunni Arabs would vote in December. He said he believed that the Sunnis would have succeeded in defeating the constitution with a two-thirds "no" vote in three provinces were it not for widespread fraud in two of them, Nineveh and Diyala. "We are not sure if they will vote" in December, Mr. Mutlaq said. "The lesson was very bad. This is what worries us."