Iraq Seems Headed for Civil War

Perhaps this is all posturing attempting to get the opposition Shia and Sunni to reconsider their positions, but it would appear the Kurds are prepared to take their objectives by force if necessary. They are asking the Shiites to roll over on Kirkuk. Which as Juan Cole points out, seems unlikely.
Informed Comment

Tom Lasseter of Knight Ridder reports that the Kurds have seeded 10,000 peshmerga militiamen into the Iraqi army units in the north of Iraq, and plan to use them to seize control of oil-rich Kirkuk. (Actually, the Kurds already control Kirkuk militarily, since their forces conquered it from Saddam with US air support, and they dominate the city's police force).


Lasseter says that the Kurdish paramilitary leaders believe Iraq is on the verge of disintegration into three states, and are preparing to take and hold Kirkuk when the civil war breaks out. (Kurdish leaders speaking this way will no doubt hurry along the process). The Sunni Arabs have no developed petroleum fields in their region, and most rich undeveloped fields appear to lie in the Shiite south. If a tripartite partition did take place, and if Kirkuk went to the Kurds, the Sunni Arabs would be reduced to dire poverty. For this reason, they are unlikely to go quietly.


[...]Since a large proportion of Turkmen in Kirkuk are Shiites, if al-Hakim goes forward on this basis, he is showing a willingness to sacrifice their interests to those of the southern, Arab Shiites that are his power base. Many Shiite Turkmen, however, follow Muqtada al-Sadr, currently al-Hakim's coalition partner, and it remains to see if al-Hakim can hold his coalition together if he pleases the Kurds as a quid pro quo for Shiite autonomy in the south, while allowing the Shiite Turkmen to be walked all over in the north.