Here's a link to my latest article on the origins of the ethnosectarian quota system in Iraq. The country is going through a political as well as a security crisis right now. A new candidate for premier has been named Haider Abadi from Dawa/State of Law and many are wondering how much different or the same he will be from Maliki. That ignores the large structural barriers that the Iraqi govt faces one of which is the ethnosectarian quotas which divide up the govt not by competence but by loyalty to parties. Many blame the U.S. and specifically the CPA for creating these quotas, but their origins are actually with the anti-Saddam opposition movement in the 1990s that created this system.