IRAQ: Salah Mutlak likes being called "the Gerry Adams of Iraq". Although he has never met the Sinn Féin leader, Dr Mutlak professes deep admiration. A Sunni Muslim businessman who owes the title "Dr" to agricultural studies at the University of Aberdeen, Mutlak has become the public face of what Sunnis call "the resistance".
"I consider myself the political wing of the resistance, without being it officially," Dr Mutlak said in an interview in his bullet-pocked office, a luxurious villa in the Sunni neighbourhood of Hay Jamiah. Earlier this month the Iraqi National Guard sprayed the building with machinegun fire.
"That means I say what I believe the resistance want and believe, without getting permission from them, without being appointed by them," Dr Mutlak continues. Is he in contact with them? "Sometimes."
Dr Mutlak rejects the belief of many Iraqis that there is a "good resistance" which attacks only military targets and a "bad resistance" that kidnaps and beheads foreigners and kills Iraqi civilians. "There is only a good resistance," he says. "The rest are criminal gangs."
As leader of the National Dialogue Council, a Sunni party, Dr Mutlak was asked to participate in the committee that drafted the constitution. But he urged his fellow Sunnis to vote against it, and now insists that it failed to pass in last Saturday's referendum.
The results of the referendum were supposed to be announced late this week. But yesterday the electoral commission said there would be a delay, to enable it to investigate alleged irregularities. "Why have they postponed?" Dr Mutlak asks rhetorically. "Because they want to cheat."
His observers in polling stations reported No victories in the provinces of Anbar, Salaheddine and Ninevah, enough to defeat the constitution. Everyone concedes that the two first provinces voted No by a strong majority, but the future of Iraq now hinges on Ninevah, which is more mixed.
"The result in Ninevah is 68.6 per cent against, and they are trying to find a way to bring it below 66 per cent," Dr Mutlak says. "My advice to them, and I'm proposing this, is: 'You are trying to cheat. We will shorten the distance for you. Let's sit down and talk about the constitution again. What are the differences between us? Let us postpone the results a little bit, find a solution to the differences and go for a referendum again.' All of us would say Yes to that."
What is the absolute minimum the Sunnis would accept? "No federal system in Iraq," Dr Mutlak answers emphatically. A large map of the country and a satin national flag stand behind his desk, the first time I've seen these symbols of nationalism during this visit to Baghdad.
His other demand is "a definition of the identity and nationhood of the Iraqis". The constitution says only that "Iraq . . . is a founding member of the Arab League." "They can dissolve the Arab League tomorrow," Dr Mutlak says scornfully. "Then where would we be? Eighty per cent of Iraqis are Arab, and they cannot agree that Iraq is an Arab nation? This is the minimum we can accept."
Until or unless Iraq's identity crisis is solved, the country's Sunnis are torn between armed struggle and political process.
"Among ourselves, some people argue that by participating in politics, we give legitimacy to the occupation," Dr Mutlak says. "We don't have any choice. That is a risk, but there is a greater risk that the Sunnis will be left out for ever if we do not go into politics."
For that reason, he intends to lead the National Dialogue Council's list in the December 15th elections for a full-term, four-year parliament. Last January, Dr Mutlak says, the Sunnis had no choice but to boycott the parliamentary elections. "They were not prepared. Their cities were attacked every day. Most of the people from Falluja were in the desert; they didn't even have a blanket. The feeling was very anti everything - anti-democratic, anti-American, anti-occupation.
"It is still anti-American and anti-occupation, but the situation is not as bad as when they were attacking Falluja."
There was a lull in violence after the January poll, but the symbolic victory over the insurgency was squandered in months of quarrelling over the formation of the government. Dr Mutlak says the present relative calm, which started just before the referendum, could also be short-lived. "The result [of the referendum] is No," he repeats. "If they make it Yes, then the violence will come back again."
Dr Mutlak is one of many Iraqis who are alarmed that religious parties now dominate Iraqi politics. The biggest mistake the Americans made, he says, was to allow Ayatollah Sistani to back the "169" Shia list that won 140 of 275 seats in the interim parliament in January.
"All the liberal, moderate people said, 'We cannot compete. We will withdraw from politics.' " This week, former prime minister Iyad Allawi founded a secular umbrella group called the Conference of National Unity, to give non-sectarian parties a chance in December. Alhough Dr Mutlak did not join, he says he intends to include people of different religions on his list. "[The former US administrator Paul] Bremer started this problem by creating a Governing Council based on sectarian quotas," he says.
"The only way we can govern Iraq is through non-sectarian people."