If the following
story is true, there will be lasting violence in Iraq:
Iraqi politicians set March 16 for the opening of the country's first democratically elected parliament in modern history as a deal hardened Sunday to name Jalal Talabani, a leader of the minority Kurds, to the presidency.
The more powerful prime minister's job will go to Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a deeply conservative Shiite who leads the Islamic Dawa party. His nomination, which the Kurds have agreed to, has been endorsed by the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq - Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
"This was one of our firm demands and we agreed on it previously. The agreement states that Jalal Talabani takes the presidential post and one of the United Iraqi Alliance members takes the prime minister's post," Talabani spokesman Azad Jundiyan told The Associated Press.
He added, however, that the clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance also reached a preliminary agreement with the Kurds on their other conditions - including extending their territories to include Kirkuk.
Why is this bad? Well, Kirkuk was "ethnically cleansed" by Saddam, who planted a lot of Sunni arabs in the city in order to cement his control over its oil resources. With an agreement to cede control of Kirkuk to the Kurds, the UIA is selling the Sunni inhabitants of Kirkuk down the river. Up till now, the largely Sunni insurgency has been searching for a cause around which to rally, other than forcing the Americans out. If this report is true, they now have the grievance they need, and a new set of targets: all of Kirkuk's Kurdish inhabitants.
Consider Spencer Ackerman's blog,
Iraq'd:
Irbil is a lonely place for the United Iraqi Alliance. The Kurds have dug in their heels over Kirkuk, determined to extract a promise from the Shia bloc that it'll cede the oil-rich city to Kurdistan, and delaying the formation of a government until the Alliance caves. But if the Alliance gives up Kirkuk, it can practically forget about any reconciliation with the Sunnis--perhaps consigning the new Iraq to endless factional violence.