Posted on 07/11/2009 2:27:07 AM PDT by Schnucki
BAGHDAD: With little notice and almost no public debate, Iraq’s Kurdish leaders are pushing ahead with a new constitution for their semiautonomous region, a step that has alarmed Iraqi and American officials who fear that the move poses a new threat to the country’s unity.
The new constitution, approved by Kurdistan’s parliament two weeks ago and scheduled for a referendum this year, underscores the level of mistrust and bad faith between the region and the central government in Baghdad. And it raises the question of whether a peaceful resolution of disputes between the two is possible, despite intensive cajoling by the US.
The proposed constitution enshrines Kurdish claims to territories and the oil and gas beneath them. But these claims are disputed by both the federal government in Baghdad and ethnic groups on the ground, and were supposed to be resolved in talks begun quietly last month between the Iraqi and Kurdish governments, sponsored by the UN and backed by the US. Instead, the Kurdish parliament pushed ahead and passed the constitution, partly as a message that it would resist pressure from the American and Iraqi governments to make concessions.
The Obama administration, which is gradually withdrawing American troops from Iraq, was surprised and troubled by the Kurdish move. Vice-President Joseph Biden criticized it in diplomatic and indirect language as “not helpful” to the administration’s goal of reconciling Iraq’s Arabs and Kurds.
“This lays the foundation for a separate state - it is not a constitution for a region,” said Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni Arab member of the national parliament. “It is a declaration of hostile intent and confrontation. Of course it will lead to escalation.”
The Kurds deserve it.
Wouldn't that be much easier if the Kurds had a place to call their own and an interest in seeing all of Iraq prosper? How can people be so short-sighted?
Didn’t take long. When I first heard Paul Harvey say it, I was disappointed, but I realized that he probably was right:
Today’s average, tribal, Muslim, Arab-ish Middle Easterner is unprepared for, and probably incapable of, anything resembling modern, elected, representative government.
Be careful about saying things like that. The NeoCons might attack you for being a supporter of Obama's Realist foreign policies.
Kurds are not Arabs. Calling a Kurd an Arab to his face is to invite violence. IF anyone is capable of democratic governance in the AO, it’s the Kurds.
they are persian and practice sufi islam...aka whirling dervishes.
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