Extract from Informed Comment
http://www.juancole.com/
Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that after months of wrangling in parliament over the enabling legislation for provincial elections, parliament has failed to find a mutually agreed-upon formula. Worse, the parliamentary debates on this issue have deepened the dispute between the Kurds and a Sunni-Shiite Arab coalition. There are fears that the sectarian civil war (between Shiites and Sunnis) will now be followed by an ethnic one, between Arabs and Kurds.
The escalation of this conflict has been in significant ways impelled by the imposition of the Kurdish paramilitary, the Peshmerga, on areas outside Kurdistan proper. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said of the Kurds 2 days ago, "It is impossible for a state to arise without a central power," adding "political participation does not mean a vet exercised by one side against another . . ." Al-Maliki's spirited defense of a strong central government angered many Kurds.
Al-Hayat says that US military commanders are petrified that the Shiite-Kurdish political alliance will fall apart and Arab-Kurdish fighting lead to a deterioration of the security situation.
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