Muhsin Abdul Hamid Sunnis Are Majority

Muhsin Abdul Hamid: The Sunnis are the Majority

ash-Sharq al-Awsat: The leader of the [Sunni] Iraqi Islamic Party, Muhsin Abdul Hamid, gave a long interview in Cairo in which he reiterated his allegations that Sunnis have been unfairly “marginalized” in Iraq by the US occupation authorities. He maintains that if you count all Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen, they are the majority of the population (he doesn’t seem to know that lots of Turkmen are Shiites or that there are Shiite Faili Kurds). In fact, the country is probably 65% Shiite, 15% Sunni Arab, 15% Kurd, 3% Turkmen, and 2% Christian. Abdul Hamid expresses confidence that a new census and open elections will reveal the Sunni majority. I worry that he and his like may turn to violence when they realize that there is no escaping Shiite demographic and political dominance.