Irak klar til at stå på egne ben fra 2007 - samtidig udvandrer mange sunnier

Ifølge den irakiske premierminister Nuri al-Maliki vil Irak snart være klar til at stå på egne ben. Fra CNN:

With more training and better equipment "our security forces will be capable of taking over the security portfolio in all Iraqi provinces within one year and a half," al-Maliki said during the meeting with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen....

During a joint appearance with British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday, al-Maliki said his government could take over security for 16 of Iraq's 18 provinces by the end of this year. The exceptions were Baghdad and the sprawling western province of Anbar, where U.S. troops are battling a stubborn insurgency.

Irakerne overtager allerede provinserne Samawa og Amara. Derefter følger Muthanna-provins til Juli og så videre indtil irakerne selv tager sig afterroristerne i hele landet. Sunnierne er begyndt at forstå at de er ved at tabe kampen, og at deres massakrer på shiiter og kurdere snart er fortid. Hvor det før bare var massakrering af anderledes-troende der stod på programmet er de derfor begyndt ikke bare at tinge om betingelserne for at holde op med at slå ihjel, men endda at true de sunnier der allerede HAR forstået, de har tabt. De sunnitiske trusler er, sammen med shiitiske dødspatruljer, årsag til at adskillige hundredetusinder irakere er flyttet til udlandet den seneste tid:

In the latest indication of the crushing hardships weighing on the lives of Iraqis, increasing portions of the middle class seem to be doing everything they can to leave the country. In the last 10 months, the state has issued new passports to 1.85 million Iraqis, 7 percent of the population and a quarter of the country's estimated middle class.

The school system offers another clue: Since 2004, the Ministry of Education has issued 39,554 letters permitting parents to take their children's academic records abroad. The number of such letters issued in 2005 was double that in 2004, according to the director of the ministry's examination department. Iraqi officials and international organizations put the number of Iraqis in Jordan at close to a million. Syrian cities also have growing Iraqi populations.

New York Times stiller det op, som om det er middelklassen det går ud over, men bemærk at hovedparten af de medlemmer af den der prortrætteres er sunnier, mens de kun udgør 15-20% af befolkningen. Strategypage har en god gennemgang af deres situation:

Sunni Arabs, the main supporters of Saddam Hussein (and many more Sunni Arab tyrants before him) may be out of power, but thousands of them, mainly men who used to work for Saddam, want back in. Not a government job, but the government. Control. To these men, the Shia Arabs are a bad joke, and will sell out the country to the hated (by all Arabs) Iranians. Many Sunni Arabs are Islamic conservatives, and no fan of Saddam, but they agree with the concept of Sunni Arab supremacy, mainly because they consider the Shia form of Islam to be heretical. And heretics must recant, or die. Sunni Arabs are only 15-20 percent of the population. They used to be closer to 20 percent, but increasing numbers of Sunni Arabs have been fleeing the violence, and Iraq. Most missed are the middle and upper class Sunni Arabs who form the backbone of the Sunni Arab community, and the Iraqi economy and business community. Harassed by gangsters and terrorists, these Iraqis are giving up on the new Iraq, at least for now, and heading to nearby Arab nations or, for the most disenchanted, the West. To many Kurds and Sunni Arabs, all Sunni Arabs should be expelled from Iraq. For these bitter victims of Saddams decades of abuse, Sunni Arabs have been the cause of most of Iraqis problems, and don't seem to have changed their attitudes much since 2003. But many Sunni Arabs have changed their attitudes, and are trying to work out deals that will give them a place in a democratic Iraq. But first, the Sunni Arab community has to purge itself of its thugs and gangsters. This isn't easy.