Shi'ah and Kurds Unite to Screw Sunni; Guarantee Lasting War.

[Teaser]

If the following story is true, there will be lasting violence in Iraq:

Iraqi politicians set March 16 for the opening of the country's first democratically elected parliament in modern history as a deal hardened Sunday to name Jalal Talabani, a leader of the minority Kurds, to the presidency.

The more powerful prime minister's job will go to Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a deeply conservative Shiite who leads the Islamic Dawa party. His nomination, which the Kurds have agreed to, has been endorsed by the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq - Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

"This was one of our firm demands and we agreed on it previously. The agreement states that Jalal Talabani takes the presidential post and one of the United Iraqi Alliance members takes the prime minister's post," Talabani spokesman Azad Jundiyan told The Associated Press.

He added, however, that the clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance also reached a preliminary agreement with the Kurds on their other conditions - including extending their territories to include Kirkuk.

Why is this bad? Well, Kirkuk was "ethnically cleansed" by Saddam, who planted a lot of Sunni arabs in the city in order to cement his control over its oil resources. With an agreement to cede control of Kirkuk to the Kurds, the UIA is selling the Sunni inhabitants of Kirkuk down the river. Up till now, the largely Sunni insurgency has been searching for a cause around which to rally, other than forcing the Americans out. If this report is true, they now have the grievance they need, and a new set of targets: all of Kirkuk's Kurdish inhabitants.

Consider Spencer Ackerman's blog, Iraq'd:

Irbil is a lonely place for the United Iraqi Alliance. The Kurds have dug in their heels over Kirkuk, determined to extract a promise from the Shia bloc that it'll cede the oil-rich city to Kurdistan, and delaying the formation of a government until the Alliance caves. But if the Alliance gives up Kirkuk, it can practically forget about any reconciliation with the Sunnis--perhaps consigning the new Iraq to endless factional violence.

[Igel]

1. I tried that argument a few weeks ago, and somebody

corrected me. Bemildred, maybe?

http://www.forbes.com/2005/02/10/cz_0210oxan_kurds_print.html
"There is also perennial concern about the status of the city of Kirkuk. Keenly aware that control of the oil city would give the Kurds the wherewithal to secede from the state, the Shia (and Sunni Arab) parties have continued to oppose the attempts of the Kurds to include Kirkuk within their region's boundary. This opposition is particularly strong since a considerable proportion of the Arab population settled in Kirkuk during Saddam Hussein's Arabization policy were Shia, and the other ethnic group present in numbers in the city--the Turkmen--is also, predominantly, Shia."

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/kirkuk.htm
"The area around Kirkuk and south to Khanaqin is the preserve of the Faili Kurds, who, unlike the majority of Kurds, are Shia. Many of the Faili Kurds belong to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). "

[Teaser]

2. If you made my argument, you should be correcting that user.

Yes, a considerable percentage of those settled were shi'ah. Note, however, that a considerable percentage is not a "majority".
Furthermore, Turkmen don't want Kurdish control over Kirkuk at all. They are more aligned with Turkey, who hates the Kurds.

[Igel]

3. Nor is a "considerable percentage" necessarily a minority.

It's more likely people aren't sure, and to say they're predominantly Shi'a would elicit cries of favoritism from the Sunnis; the reverse claim would elicit parallel, but opposite, cries.

And, true, Turkmen don't want Kurdish control over Kirkuk. There's a bit of racism there, too, and historical national pride. I doubt the Turkomen liked being under Arab rule much.

But it's far from clear that there's the Sunni Arab community there is large enough to be a problem in any normal sense of the word, which is the major premise you're assuming.

It's less problematic just to say that the ulema (aka "Ass. of Islamic Scholars") has decided to make an issue over the situation. After all, they don't want any of their subjects to get away--whether it's the Kurds that they've governed intermittently for so long, or the "obviously inferior infidel" Shi'a.

[Teaser]

4. There is already a low grade civil war in Kirkuk

between Sunni Arabs and Turkmen vs. Kurds. There is even some first steps at ethnic cleansing going on. If this doesn't inflame the Sunni and Turkmen communities even further, I will promise to never read another word of arabic poetry, as much pleasure as it might give me.