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The lede is that the Kurds have merged their 25% Parliamentary minority with the 25% Sunni minority because of "Gucci Guerilla" PM Ibrahim Al-Ja'afari's general incompetence and overall brutish political persona. Krauthammer notes:
Not all parts of the Shiite coalition are happy either with Jafari's ineffectiveness or with his political dependence on Sadr. Splits are already appearing in that uneasy alliance. But the most important challenge to Jafari is the Kurds. They are wary of Sadr and unhappy with Jafari, under whom everything -- services, security, trust -- is deteriorating.
Admittedly, part of their calculation is sectarian. This is, after all, Iraq. Jafari has impeded Kurdish claims on Kirkuk and infuriated the Kurds by traveling to Turkey (which opposes all Kurdish ambitions) without their approval and with a traveling party that did not include a single Kurd.
The Kurd-Sunni-secular bloc wants a new prime minister who will establish a national unity government. Because the United States wants precisely the same outcome, the Kurd defection is very good news in a landscape of almost unrelenting bad news. The other good news is a split in the Shiite bloc, with a near-majority that favors a more technocratic prime minister and is chafing at Sadr's influence. Additionally, the Sunni insurgency is in the midst of its own internecine strife between the local ex-Baathists, who are not particularly religious and want power, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's foreign jihadists, for whom killing Shiites combines sport and religion and who care not a whit for the future of the country. There are numerous reports of Sunni tribes declaring war on these foreign jihadists and of firefights between them.
Krauthammer sums up by hoping that a two-thirds of parliament will agree on a national-unity government that foreswears sectarianism, which is corrosive in general and destructive when militias supplant the police and Army.
Professor Juan Cole thinks Ja'afari's current woes are a result of Sunni-Kurd and Sunni-Arab hostility, but the evidence is strong that PM Ja'afari is weak and feckless and not the man to unite Iraq.
1 comment :
The split between the Kurds and the Shiites has been building for some time. During the reign of Saddam Hussein, the Kurds and the Shiites were under the thumbs of, and thus usually allied against, the Sunnis.
However, now that that the Shiites, who make up roughly 60% of the population, are in control, the Kurds have to ally with the Sunnis and secular forces in order to avoid the "democratic" tyranny of the Shiite majority. In addition, the Kurds are relatively secular, while the vast majority of the Shiites would create a theocratic state if they could get away with it. As a result, the Kurds have to overcome their historical grievances against the Sunnis in order to protect their current interests.
FWIW, I’ve written about this at some length on my weblog, The Is-Ought Problem:
Iraqi-Kurdistan: Kurd - Shia Split?
Shia Government Preparing For War Against Iraqi Kurdistan?
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