A hopeful sign...

It looks like the Sunnis are being brought into the political picture in Iraq.

Several senior clerics of Iraq's disaffected Sunni Muslim minority will soon issue a decree calling on followers of the faith to vote in upcoming elections and help write a new constitution, a prominent Sunni leader said Monday. The step could draw Sunni Arabs away from the insurgency and into a political process they have steadfastly rejected.

Adnan Dulaimi, who heads the Sunni Endowment, the government agency responsible for Sunni religious affairs, said the framers of the religious edict, or fatwa , would seek the support of other groups in the fractious Sunni community before issuing it.

The push for the fatwa, together with the National Assembly's formal approval Monday of the addition of 15 Sunnis to the committee writing a draft constitution, suggested that the slow and often contentious efforts to bring Sunni Arabs into the political sphere were beginning to bear fruit.