Tuesday, August 16, 2005
You read Fisk here first
Everyone knows the real issue behind the constitution: will it allow Iraq's three princip[al] communities - the Shias, the Sunnis and the Kurds - to form their own federal states? And if so, will this mean the break up of Iraq? The Sunnis, the only one of the three whose homes do not sit on oil reserves, are naturally against such a division which would, incidentally, allow the Americans and the other Western nations, who still claim to have liberated Iraq for "democracy", to reach oil deals with two weakened entities rather than a potentially united Iraqi nation.
Add to all this Kurdistan's demand that the future demography of Kirkuk - the Arab population injected by Saddam, the Kurdish population of the city exiled by Saddam and its minority Turkomans - be settled before the constitution is written, and you get a good idea why even the Americans are beginning to lose patience. The Kurds want oil-rich Kirkuk to be the capital of Kurdistan - a state which already exists although no Iraqi seems to be prepared to admit this - and thus further cut away at the frontier between " Arab" Iraq and "Kurdish" Iraq.
From Fisk via Info Clearing House.
I think Fisk misses two important tricks here, but just because of space limitations, not because he doesn't know these things: there are Kurds in Iraq and Turkey who would like to be part of Kurdistan. Both nations would do almost anything to prevent that, even perhaps go to war with the United States. Second, part of the reason things are so dicey is because the US appears to be stirring up separatism on the part of the Irani Kurds and Azeris. We complain about foreign fighters in Iraq, but the Iranis may see Khalq as US foreign fighters.
But Fisk has hit the high points. There is a possible solution, if the US will permit it. Readers of this blog saw it months ago.
I'm pessimistic. Bushco seems to be determined to keep those bases.
More blogs about politics.
