There are significant concerns that Sunnis will boycott the "elections" in Iraq slated for the end of January. This would be bad, since Sunnis have traditionally enjoyed power in Iraq and if they were shut out of the elections and consequently dominated by Shiites there could be trouble.
Bush's plan? Nothing less than a little sidestepping of the democratic process. We may not be ready to draft soldiers (yet), but we're ready to draft representatives.
The Bush administration is talking to Iraqi leaders about guaranteeing Sunni Arabs a certain number of ministries or high-level jobs in the future Iraqi government if, as is widely predicted, Sunni candidates fail to do well in Iraq's elections.
An even more radical step, one that a Western diplomat said was raised already with an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric, is the possibility of adding some of the top vote-getters among the Sunni candidates to the 275-member legislature, even if they lose to non-Sunni candidates.
Now, of course, this wouldn't be the first time that minorities were guaranteed seats in a legislature. However, this may be the first time that it was done because that minority boycotted the election. Apparently the Bush Administration is so hell-bent on having elections--no matter how flawed--in January that it will promote Sunnis into the government despite a boycott.
There's also some potential that Sunni marginalization could escalate Iraq's brewing civil war.
"You do the math," said Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a former adviser to the American occupation in Baghdad. "Iraq's population is about 60 percent Shiite, 20 percent Sunni and 20 percent Kurds. But if Sunnis don't vote, they could become only 5 percent of the electorate." Iraqis are to choose among 107 slates and 7,000 candidates.
If Sunnis are marginalized in that fashion, Mr. Diamond said, it could lead to further alienation, an increased insurgency and possibly a civil war, especially if the Kurdish and Shiite victors try to write a constitution that favors their interests over the Sunnis'.
A further fear in the administration is the possibility that continuing violence may force some Sunni candidates and parties to withdraw from the process before Jan. 30, on the ground that they have little chance of winning because voters may not turn out.