At the same time, a figure in the Association of Muslim Scholars, the leading Sunni clerical group, gave qualified encouragement to Sunnis to join the U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces. And U.S. military officials have said that the number and effectiveness of attacks by antigovernment groups on U.S. and other occupying forces has diminished over the last two months.

In a related development registering further steps by U.S. imperialism toward its goal of expanding its influence and domination of the region, the Syrian government indicated in early April that it would withdraw all its troops and intelligence personnel from Lebanon by April 30.

Hajem al-Hassani, a former leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, was elected speaker of the National Assembly. He had lived in exile since moving to the United States in 1979, returned to Iraq shortly after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and was appointed to the Iraqi Governing Council, an advisory group to the occupation regime headed by U.S. proconsul Paul Bremer. Al-Hassani was critical of the U.S.-led assault on Fallujah last November. But he broke with the Iraqi Islamic Party when the group left the government in protest over the U.S. assault on the stronghold of forces loyal to the former Baath Party regime.

Hussein al-Shahrastani, a candidate of the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) slate in the elections and a Shiite, and Aref Tayfur, a leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), were elected as deputy speakers.

The UIA got widespread support among Shiites and won a slim majority in the 275-seat assembly. Lacking the two-thirds majority needed to form a government on its own, the UIA has been locked in talks with the Kurdish slate headed by the KDP and PUK aimed at forming a coalition government. The KDP/PUK-led slate won the second-largest bloc of seats in the assembly.

The impasse was finally broken when Talabani was chosen president April 6—the first time in the country’s history a Kurd holds the post. In addition, Adel Abdel Mahdi, a Shiite and leader of the UIA, and outgoing president Ghazi al-Yawar, a Sunni, were picked as vice-presidents. The three-man presidential council is expected to finish soon the job of filling the new regime’s top posts by appointing Ibrahim al-Jafaari, a Shiite and leader of the UIA, as prime minister.

Parties headed by wealthy Sunnis largely boycotted the January vote. The selection of al-Hassani and al-Yawar, two prominent bourgeois politicians who are Sunni, was aimed at including as many Sunnis as possible in the government being cobbled together under Washington’s tutelage. Wealthy Sunnis were the backbone of support for the Baathist regime and have been the main financial sponsors of groups responsible for bombings and other attacks on U.S. troops and Iraqi government forces.

Meanwhile, Ahmad Abd al-Ghaful al-Samarrai, a leading cleric in the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), urged Sunnis to join the Iraqi security forces during a sermon in Baghdad, reported Al-Jazeera TV. Al-Sammarai was among 64 members of AMS issuing the edict, or fatwa. He said this was necessary in order to prevent the country’s police and army from falling into “the hands of those who have caused chaos, destruction, and violated the sanctities.” The statement also said that Sunnis should not aid foreign troops against other Iraqis.

This was the latest overture to the Iraqi government and its U.S. backers by the AMS and other groups based among Sunnis. These groups are trying to cut their losses resulting from having boycotted the elections and from the revulsion by a growing majority in Iraq at the tactics of the antigovernment groups they have backed.

According to the Pentagon and press reports, such attacks on U.S. forces now average between 40 and 60 per day throughout the country. This is lower than the period leading up to the January elections, reported the American Forces Information Service, a Pentagon publication. In the last four months of 2004, the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq were 80, 63, 137, and 72, respectively, according to the web site icasualties.org, which provides monthly tabulations based on the U.S. Defense Department’s casualty reports. In January, 107 U.S. soldiers were killed. In February the figure dropped to 58. It fell to 40 in March—the lowest since February 2003.

The same weekend as the Iraqi National Assembly elected its speaker, Syrian foreign minister Farouq al-Shara joined UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen at a press conference in Damascus on the Syrian troop withdrawal from Lebanon. Roed-Larsen announced that all Syrian troops and intelligence officers would be out of Lebanon by April 30, well before elections for a new Lebanese parliament.

Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese rallied in protest in the weeks after the February 14 assassination of Rafik Hariri, a wealthy businessman and former Lebanese prime minister who was an opponent of Lebanon’s pro-Syrian government. The protests have been largely inspired by the consequences of what Washington has done in the Mideast. U.S. officials have implied in public statements that Damascus may have been implicated in Hariri’s assassination.
 
 
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