Yglesias has been correctly obsessed with the Kirkuk situation. My sense is that the external–Turkish–threat may be greater than the internal (mostly Sunni) Arab situation. In recent weeks, the Maliki government has smiled upon “voluntary” relocation plans for the Kirkuk Arabs: there is synergy between the desire of Kurds and Shi’ites to have their own autonomous zones, north and south.
We have Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George to thank for all this. At the Cairo Conference in 1921, they insisted on including the Mosul Province of the Ottoman Empire along with Baghdad and Basra provinces to form “Iraq.” There were two reasons for this: oil and Lloyd George’s support for the Greeks in their war against Turkey (and his hatred of the Turks). There were no good answers to be had at that point–although there were slightly better answers than we have now. The Cairo confrerees would have better served the region by either allowing Mosul province to remain a part of Turkey, or–better still–by creating an independent Kurdistan, including the Kurdish areas of what is now Syria, Iran and Turkey. A lot of blood has been shed over this British decision, and more, sadly, to come.