Prediction I hope is wrong
Friday, February 25, 2011
The entire Middle East is catching fire, and it was unlikely that some Iraqis wouldn't find a reason to join. They have some pretty serious protests underway about government services, but there is one thing that makes me nervous.
Police used stun grenades to ward off about 1,000 demonstrators in Saddam Hussein's former hometown of Tikrit and in the northern city of Kirkuk hundreds of people rallied against corruption in front of the provincial headquarters.
Seems fairly innocuous, and the part about Tikrit is unsurprising. But Kirkuk is a major problem that has not been addressed in any meaningful way. The Kurds consider it part of Kurdistan and expect it and the nearby oil fields to be theirs. Saddam tried to de-Kurdify and Arabize it during his role, so the traditional mix of people has been upset. This will have to be resolved sometime and I am afraid that time may come soon.
Everyone else in the region has been grabbing for their freedom and the Kurds have actually been at this longer than just about anyone. I think they may take advantage of the unrest in the region to make their claim for Kurdistan as a free state. The chaos makes it less likely (or not) that they will be successful. But if they are ever gonna do it, now seems like time to join the party. Let's hope not, as that kind of trouble will not be easy to solve.
Mookie Sadr is also back from his work writing doctoral level dissertations on the Koran while studying in Iran. That is hardly helpful. Talk about a guy who was the perfect candidate for a 7.62 FMJ lobotomy. The first time he rose up and we let him slide, that was an opportunity lost forever.