.Oh! Those Kurds!
"What You Need to Know to Follow the Kirkuk Controversy
I'll post on the Iraqi bloggers' take on Kirkuk in a bit (if I can). But first...
Remember those days of optimism at the beginning of 2005, only a few weeks before the first unfettered national elections in an Arab country? Back then, the greatest danger was thought to be a war between the Iraqi Kurds and Arabs over secession centered around Kirkuk.
Everyone thought that elections would stabilize things in Iraq to allow the issue of Kurdistan indepenced to move to the front of the stove. I wrote about it here. In The New Yorker, George Packer predicted that the war for Kirkuk would be the "next Iraqi war". Well, the elections didn't stablize things (in the short run), as the great Kurd blogger, Kurdo, predicted.
Well, the most inarguable proof that Arab Iraq is finally beginning to get its act together, is that the status of Kurdistan and Kirkuk have been able to return to prominence among Iraq's issues. The Sunni Insurgency collapsed. Al Qaeda is beginning to return to the butt-hole of the planet (the Afghanistan/Pakistan borderlands) from which they originally scattered. And the two-bit racketeering Sadrist bullies are being thoroughly thrashed by Shi'a-Sunni-Kurdish unity government.
So, it is actually a good thing IMO that Iraqis can fight over whether Kirkuk is Arab or Kurdish (as though someone could pick it up and take it somewhere). It is *could be* a good thing that Iraqi Arabs feel cocky enough to think the Kurds need them more than they need the Kurds (it has been the opposite for the last 5 years).
Here are Kurd/Kirkuk issues as far as I can tell:"
IBC
I'll post on the Iraqi bloggers' take on Kirkuk in a bit (if I can). But first...
Remember those days of optimism at the beginning of 2005, only a few weeks before the first unfettered national elections in an Arab country? Back then, the greatest danger was thought to be a war between the Iraqi Kurds and Arabs over secession centered around Kirkuk.
Everyone thought that elections would stabilize things in Iraq to allow the issue of Kurdistan indepenced to move to the front of the stove. I wrote about it here. In The New Yorker, George Packer predicted that the war for Kirkuk would be the "next Iraqi war". Well, the elections didn't stablize things (in the short run), as the great Kurd blogger, Kurdo, predicted.
Well, the most inarguable proof that Arab Iraq is finally beginning to get its act together, is that the status of Kurdistan and Kirkuk have been able to return to prominence among Iraq's issues. The Sunni Insurgency collapsed. Al Qaeda is beginning to return to the butt-hole of the planet (the Afghanistan/Pakistan borderlands) from which they originally scattered. And the two-bit racketeering Sadrist bullies are being thoroughly thrashed by Shi'a-Sunni-Kurdish unity government.
So, it is actually a good thing IMO that Iraqis can fight over whether Kirkuk is Arab or Kurdish (as though someone could pick it up and take it somewhere). It is *could be* a good thing that Iraqi Arabs feel cocky enough to think the Kurds need them more than they need the Kurds (it has been the opposite for the last 5 years).
Here are Kurd/Kirkuk issues as far as I can tell:"
IBC
posted by madtom at 9:48 PM
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