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Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Quotes of the day: No peace until Iraqis sort out who owns Iraq & Sunnis decide if they can live with the post-2003 order

From Fanar Haddad of the National University of Singapore: “As far as Arab Iraq is concerned, one of the characteristic features of this struggle has been the mutually reinforcing, cyclical interplay between Shi’a-centric state building and Sunni rejection.” His nuanced answer: “It is not for Abadi to create Sunni political representation: Sunni political representation must ...

IRAQ-UNREST
IRAQ-UNREST
Iraqi men from local tribes brandish their weapons as they pose for a photograph in the city of Fallujah, west of the capital Baghdad, on January 5, 2014. Iraq is preparing a "major attack" to retake militant-held Fallujah, a senior official said, spelling a new assault for the city, west of Baghdad, where US forces repeatedly battled insurgents. AFP PHOTO/SADAM EL-MEHMEDY (Photo credit should read Sadam el-Mehmedy/AFP/Getty Images)

From Fanar Haddad of the National University of Singapore:

From Fanar Haddad of the National University of Singapore:

“As far as Arab Iraq is concerned, one of the characteristic features of this struggle has been the mutually reinforcing, cyclical interplay between Shi’a-centric state building and Sunni rejection.”

His nuanced answer: “It is not for Abadi to create Sunni political representation: Sunni political representation must emerge from within Sunni Arab communities and this will not happen before the internal struggle regarding the question of whether to accept or reject the post-2003 order and whether the post-2003 state (and not just the government of the day) is regarded as legitimate or not is resolved.”

(HT to RV via JW)

AFP

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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