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[Informed Comment] Informed Comment: Iraq: Kurdish-Arab War in the Offing?: Sami al-Askari, an MP for the Unified Iraqi Coalition, stresses that "the recent statements made by the Kurds do not serve the political situation in Iraq," and points out to Al-Sharq al-Awsat Online that "Surely there are problems between the central government and the Kurdistan Region government; these differences cannot be solved in this way but through dialogue and commitment to the Constitution."

[mcclatchydc.com: World] McClatchy Washington Bureau | 02/19/2009 | Iraq's Kurdish-Arab ...: Just before the provincial elections, Maliki deployed forces without informing the provincial government, and non-Kurdish candidates were brought to Baghdad to be schooled on the dangers of the Kurdish issue, he said. Kurds, Goran said, been treated like "traitors."

[MotherJones.com | MoJoBlog - Social Issues and Political Commentary] McCaffrey Says US in The "End Game" in Iraq | Mother Jones: For example, if a "Status of Forces" agreement is not reached before the current UN mandate for US troops in Iraq expires at the end of December, American units will have to return to their bases and begin withdrawal, threatening Iraq's recent gains. Politicians in Baghdad have so far not agreed to US proposals, which McCaffrey says is like "holding a gun to their own head." Beyond that, Iran's covert operations in Iraq continue to be destabilizing, and if Tehran goes forward with nuclear weapons development, the inevitable US response could wreak havoc on the entire region, Iraq included.

[Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories] A momentous vote in Iraq after years of war | csmonitor.com: As the Shiite-Sunni rift that flared into sectarian war in 2006 has waned, concern by US officials is growing over Kurdish-Arab tensions, with recent flare-ups between Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), and Mr. Maliki.

[Kansas City Star: World] Low turnout in Iraq's election reflects a disillusioned nation ...: People cowered in their homes while others literally killed each other in the streets. Many here feel the people they elected were party to or at least complicit in the violence.

[GlobalPost — Diplomacy] New space for politics | GlobalPost: ISCI, formerly the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, seems to be not only too revolutionary for most Iraqi’s scaled-down aspirations, but squandered their chance by failing to deliver basic services. Their poor showing was also seen as a vote of no-confidence in their vision of a semi-autonomous Shiite south, similar to the Kurdish north.

[Iraq Updates - Kurdistan] 'City of Death' May Be Key to Iraq's Future | Iraq Updates: Sunni Arabs boycotted the last elections, which they thought were fraudulent and held under foreign occupation, and Shiite Islamists took control of the council. Sunni Arab Islamists, exiled under Saddam, mostly from the Iraqi Islamic Party , took a significant minority of the seats, although most Sunni Arabs consider them largely unrepresentative, and Kurds took the rest.

[WSJ.com: The Informed Reader - WSJ.com] The Informed Reader - WSJ.com : U.S. Withdrawal Might Not Mean ...: Polls show that, despite their differences, most Iraqis are against the fighting by extremists and in favor of a unified, peaceful Iraq as well as a U.S. withdrawal. A central government that doesn’t operate under the suspicion of being U.S.-guided will be better equipped to broker the compromises necessary for peace, he says.

[National Security Experts] National Journal Online -- National Security Experts -- The Obama ...: I believe that President-elect Obama’s campaign pledge to withdraw most combat forces from Iraq within 16 months will be overtaken by reality. While Obama’s pledge made political sense when he was competing with the more hawkish Hillary Clinton for votes in the primaries, I think that as President, Obama will be forced to conclude that such a precipitous withdrawal would pull the rug out from under Iraq’s fragile governing coalition, squander the hard-won security gains of the last two years, and risk reinvigorating the sunni Arab insurgency as well as pro-Iranian Shia militias. 

[Don Surber] Don Surber » Blog Archive » AP: We won: The new phase focuses on training the Iraqi army and police, restraining the .Iraq still faces a mountain of problems: sectarian rivalries, power struggles within the Sunni and Shiite communities, Kurdish-Arab tensions, corruption.

[SWJ Blog] 21 October SWJ Roundup (SWJ Blog): Metz concludes that the United States has a long-standing, continuing problem “developing sound assumptions when the opponent operates within a different psychological and cultural framework.” He sees a pattern of misjudgments about Saddam and Iraq based on Western cultural and historical bias and a pervasive faith in the superiority of America’s worldview and institutions. This myopia contributed to America being caught off guard by Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, then underestimating his longevity, and finally miscalculating the likelihood of a stable and democratic Iraq after he was toppled.

[Iowa Underground] The Myth that FDR Failed: MOSUL, Iraq ”” At the headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Mosul, Khasro Goran, the deputy governor of Iraq's Nineveh province, is worried about the future. Santorum argued that the American public knows too little about the Islamic faith, and to prove his point, he asked the students whether they knew the difference between Sunnis and Shias.

[Immelman for Congress] Immelman for Congress » Blog Archive » Coleman vs. Franken: ”˜Flip ...: A recent report by the International Crisis Group, which monitors conflicts around the world, warned that the Arab-Kurdish schism, with Mosul as one of its epicenters, could arguably exceed the Sunni-Shiite divide that spawned the 2005-2007 sectarian war. …

[Station Showcase with PRX] Station Showcase with PRX » Blog Archive » “Voices of Iraqi ...: Because I have frequently heard that sectarian violence is destroying Iraq and Iraq is heading for a civil war, I was most surprised to learn that my speakers deny this possibility. They don’t buy that the U.S. should stay to prevent the civil war but they see the U.S. invasion and occupation in Iraq as the cause of the chaos, the destruction, and the prevention of peace.

[Global News Blog Headlines] Iraq - Voting starts in Iraq’s landmark election (AFP via Yahoo ...: MOSUL, Iraq (AP) Iraqi Christians still reeling from a string of murders last fall find themselves caught in the middle of a power struggle between Kurds and Sunni Arabs that was fueled by this weekend’s elections. Source: Reuters * Iraq voting ends without major attacks * Obama applauds, says poll important step * Figures show January least deadly month of war By Aseel Kami and Missy Ryan BAGHDAD, Jan 31 (Reuters ”¦ .

[Informed Comment] Informed Comment: W.'s Twilight: A Man of Feeble Temper: Bush lumbers off into his Dallas gated community (until recently whites-only), having dropped the pretense of being a rancher who liked to "clear brush." He has enriched his cronies in the military-industrial complex, and opened Iraq to investment by US petroleum firms. But the US economy was hollowed out by an administration that did not believe in auditing the books or actually regulating businesses as the law required.

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