Hot Take: Iraq’s Sunnis stake their claim

Iraq’s election surprise. Iraqis went to the polls on Oct. 10 to elect the 329 members of the Council of Representatives (parliament). One of the big headlines from the election has been the gains for the Iraqi Sunni community, which make up about 22%, or approximately 9 million, of Iraq’s estimated 40 million population. Thirteen years after the United States deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, an Arab Sunni, Iraq’s Sunnis are finally positioned to take their claim to Iraq’s political future.

The first awakening. Following Saddam’s overthrow in 2003, Iraq’s Sunnis mostly abstained from politics and suffered at times under the sectarian post-Saddam governments, as well as attacks by rogue Shiite sectarian militias. A sense of disenfranchisement among Sunnis was compounded by a "de-Baathification" movement which uprooted many professional and educated Sunnis from their jobs, as well as from leadership positions in the military, which was disbanded by US decree. By 2007, Iraq was reeling from sectarian violence and Al-Qaeda terrorism. To quell the violence, US President George W. Bush added 20,000 forces to the over 130,000 US troops already in Iraq. Key to the strategy for stemming the violence were the Iraqi Arab Sunni forces who fought alongside the US, a trend referred to as the Sunni "awakening" or the "Sons of Iraq."

A second awakening. The elections this week showed that the Sunnis are emerging as a more cohesive political force. Mohammad Halbousi, the Sunni speaker of parliament and leader of the Taqadom (Progress) Party, has received, according to the latest tally, 37 seats, second only to the Sadrists, led by populist Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, which so far has 72 seats (these numbers could change). Taqadom received only six seats in the 2018 elections. If Halbousi can unite with his Sunni political rival, Khamis al-Kanjar, leader of the Azem (Arab Project) Party, which received 12 seats, then Iraq's Sunnis could control as many as 50 of the 329 seats.