“The Iraqis seem to enjoy politics”

U.S. Secretary of State Dr. Condoleeza Rice, September 13, 2005:

I think that the most interesting thing to me about Iraq is that politics has broken out in Iraq in a really major way. And the Iraqis seem to enjoy politics.

Yahya Barzanji, The Guardian, October 3, 2005:

Iraq’s Kurdish president called on the country’s Shiite prime minister to step down, the spokesman for the president’s party said Sunday, escalating a political split between the two factions that make up the government. [...]

The political wrangling deepened the splits between Iraq’s three main communities amid a constitutional process that was aimed at bringing them together to build a democratic nation. Kurds complained that Shiites were monopolizing the government, while Sunnis - who have made up the backbone of the violent insurgency - accused Shiites of stacking the deck against them in the political process.

The Kurdish-Shiite split hits the core of the coalition that has made up the transitional government. President Jalal Talabani has made veiled threats to pull the Kurds out of the coalition if their demands are not met, a step that could bring the government’s collapse.

Professor Juan Cole, University of Michigan, October 3, 2005:

What made the Kurdish-Shiite alliance possible was their common opposition to the old Baathist leadership of the Sunni Arab community. Both the Shiites and the Kurds were seeking a new role in Iraq, which would not be defined by Arab nationalism inflected with Sunnism. Both had petroleum resources in their areas. Both had had unfortunate experiences with strong central government.

But with the Baath defeated, the two no longer have a strong common foe. They are not afraid of anything. They do not need each other. And the Kurds absolutely insist on annexing Kirkuk to their Kurdistan confederacy, even though Kurds are probably not a majority there. Kirkuk is where they oil is. It is what would make the Kurdistan confederacy viable, even rich. That it has lots of Arabs and Turkmen inhabitants who don’t want to be in Kurdistan is of no moment in Sulaymaniyah and Irbil (Kurdish strongholds).

If the Kurdish-Shiite alliance is over with, then I suspect so is Iraq.

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