A DIFERENCIA de los opinadores y enteraos varios que pontifican sobre los sunníes y las elecciones en Iraq, mostrando una especial habilidad para saber lo que piensan éstos sin preguntáselo y pronosticando prácticamente una guerra civil, los propios sunníes tienen claro que hay un antes y un después de las urnas. Por ello están adoptando un tono conciliador, y mostrándose dispuestos a aceptar la oferta que los virtuales vencedores, los chíitas, les habían hecho ya antes de los comicios para involucrarse en el proceso constituyente:

Influential Sunni Arab leaders of a boycott of last Sunday's elections expressed a new willingness Friday to engage the coming Iraqi government and play a role in writing the constitution, in what may represent a strategic shift in thinking among mainstream anti-occupation groups.

The signs remain tentative, and even advocates of such change suggest that much will depend on the posture the new government takes toward the insurgency and the removal of former Baath Party officials from state institutions. But in statements and interviews, some Sunni leaders said the sectarian tension that surged ahead of the vote had forced them to rethink their stance.

Iraqis voted Sunday for seats in a 275-member transitional parliament, which will appoint the government and draft the constitution this year. In all likelihood, the parliament will be dominated by members of the country's Shiite Arab majority and by ethnic Kurdish Sunnis from northern Iraq, leaving Sunni Arabs and others who oppose the presence of foreign troops in Iraq with little representation.

"We are taking a conciliatory line because we are frightened that things may develop into a civil war," said Wamidh Nadhmi, the leader of the Arab Nationalist Trend and a spokesman for a coalition of Sunni and Shiite groups that boycotted the election. "The two sides have come to a conclusion that they have to respect the other side if they want a unified Iraq."

He cautioned, however, that "perhaps it will not succeed."

The Association of Muslim Scholars, one of the most influential groups, sent mixed signals this week -- saying it would respect the election results, while arguing that the new government will lack the legitimacy to draft a constitution. But the sermon Friday at the association's headquarters, the Um al-Qura mosque, was decidedly conciliatory. Directing most of his words at the new government, the preacher called Iraq its "trusteeship" and said the people's welfare was "a great responsibility on your shoulders."

A meeting Thursday at the home of a Sunni elder statesman that brought together some largely Sunni groups, including those that boycotted the elections, produced an agreement to participate in drafting the constitution, "without condition," said Nadhmi, one of those in attendance. A spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party, which withdrew from Sunday's vote but still was listed on the ballot, said its members would not enter parliament but that the party would not object if independent candidates who were included on its list took seats.

[...] By all accounts, the Sunni turnout was far lower than that of Shiites and Kurds, although Sunni leaders debate whether that was a result of intimidation or adherence to calls for a boycott. But some residents in such Sunni towns as Ramadi and Tikrit have suggested there may be regrets over the choice. The disappointment seems strongest in urban areas, which have proved less sympathetic to the insurgency than the countryside.

The insurgents "made fools of us," said Mahmoud Ghasoub, a businessman in Baiji, a restive northern town. "They voted to disrupt the elections but failed. Now we have lost both tracks. We did not vote, nor did they disrupt the elections."