Dayuhan:

There are just so many central ironies to Iraq:

Some believe we entered Iraq on some form of "Crusade," reminiscent of retaking Jerusalem from Islam. Yet our staunch ally in that alleged Crusade was, in fact, Salahaddin's Kurdish descendants.

Some believe that defeat of the Baathist Party---the eerie secularist, pan arab movement long-ago commandeered by brutal dictatorships---was a core objective. Yet Maliki,while crushing Baathists in Iraq, staunchly supports the adjacent Syrian Baathist dictator allegedly at the urging of its Iranian sponsors.

As Maliki allegedly moves to dominate and punish the Sunni (and former Baathist) areas of Iraq, the resident Sunni Iraqis pursue refuge in the same Autonomous Region status enshrined in the Iraqi constitution under the belief that it was primarily to protect and reward the Kurds. The indigenous Sunni autonomy movements are heavily opposed by the Sunni and Baathist diaspora, ensconced in surrounding Sunni and Baathist supportive US ally nations, because it undermines their hopes for a future dominant role in a strongly centralized Iraq.

As Shia political control, allegedly under Iranian influence, grows in the South, the looming threat of adjacent Sunni governments (all our powerful principal allies) necessitates diplomatic missions by Iran and Maliki to, for example, Saudi Arabia, assure them that they pose no threats.

In the midst of all this confusion, it is, perhaps, worthwhile to keep in mind not just "that which divides," but also "that which unites"---the reason that these folks don;t all just walk away and declare independence.

Kurdistan, as an autonomous region, is a light and beacon for the larger Kurdish peoples who are routinely subject to pressure and pograms in the adjacent countries, all of whom have well-articulated concerns over a more independent Kurdish nation, and ongoing issues with their indigenous Kurdish populations. Example: Kurds have a close relationship with the Asad government which, if overturned, poses serious repercussions for Kurds, and a Sunni Syria opens completely new Pandora's boxes for both Kurds, Shias, Iranians, etc...

In addition to the eternally complex political, ethnic, religious balancing acts between and within these countries are the basic geographic, resource and infrastructure dependencies:

Water does not reach Baghdad and the south until after it passes through the North---much the same with oil and oil infrastructure.

If Kurds have oil, but without links to Basra, pipelines are the only option, and are always vulnerable.

Without water, the center and south is a dustbowl of a port, with little hospitable future for its residents, and serious power issues.

The prospective Sunni autonomous areas (Ninewa, Salah ad Din, Anbar, Diyala) represent a powerful set of geography, resource, and infrastructure assets, but their value is, to a great extent, limited absent their connection to the adjacent areas.

All told, Iraq is a very complicated puzzle with many profound reasons to understand it as a common and interdependent area (nation, whatever), but with many internal (and eternal) rifts and divisions. Prosperity for the greatest number of people comes from working together, the opposite where they do not.

How they hammer out, and continue to re-hammer out, conflicts and resolutions, will dictate successes and failures, but most of the posturing, leverage, balancing and re-balancing is something that they---post-conflict parties with substantial unresolved grievances---is what those parties have to resolve in the next few years.

My guess is that the autonomous region authority is a much more substantial option for a viable future Iraq than many consider (depending on the intergovernmental resolutions needed to implement it) but that it is not a "boogeyman" of breaking up Iraq any more than in many pother nations where certain power is centralized (nationally significant resources, waterways, transportation, defense) while much is broadly distributed to autonomous and semi-autonomous regions.

Assuming a future Iraq with substantially greater oil flows and revenues as its sole basis, a system of autonomous regions, each demanding its own portion of the revenue pie under its own local control, is not, over time, a bad business model, and assures continued pressure for greater revenue flows to the regions than to a heavily armed central government.

"Dividing Iraq"---as the inflammatory slogans suggest---is not an all or nothing issue, but an ongoing and essential process of balancing and re-balancing, within a national envelope that is as much defined internally as by its neighbors.

The Speaker's latest comments (although inflamed by Wolf Blitzer and Company) are really mild stuff under the circumstances where Maliki is, with some urgency, trying to stave off the increasing pressure for Sunni autonomy which was inflamed by his overreaching actions against them through the central government which he currently controls.

Hold your breath for the Iraqi people, who many of us identify with, but not for the post-conflict politicians who are still playing the old games instead of getting on with viable new ones.