Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

This Kurdish author seems really fed up with the U.S. yet there are times I believe the U.S. has promised the Kurds an independent Kurdistan albeit best kept under wraps at present. Just a feeling.

In January 2005, Kurdish authorities held a referendum on whether to establish an independent state in northern Iraq. About 95 percent supported this demand. "Kurdish leaders possibly at odds with mainstream Kurdish opinion have said that, for now, they will not push for independence," the Congressional Research Service said in a March 2005 report. "This stance is likely to ease the concerns of Turkey, as well as Syria and Iran, which have substantial Kurdish populations."

However the extremely influential CFR has recommended the Kurds get their own state.
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Is this why the Kurdish leaders are holding back given the CFR proposal they know an independent Kurdistan is in their future no matter what appears in the Constitution?

Following are a few things that seem to point to Kurdish independence.

We are training the PUK in the struggle against Iran and have not taken any concrete steps to combat the PKK.
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Even the Sunnis believe that autonomy in Kurdistan is a fact that cannot be ignored and that changing it would be fighting history, they are opposed to giving the Shi'ites autonomy in the south.
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The Kurds have the largest militia force, with 50,000 trained fighters. Officials said the Kurds are followed by the Shi'ites, with more than 20,000 fighters, and then the Sunnis, who can count on elements of the former Saddam Hussein regime.

This month, Kurdistan President Masoud al-Barazani said that he accepted integrating the peshmerga into the Iraqi National Army, conditioning, however, that it served only in Kurdistan and not in the rest of Iraq. The duty of the Kurdish forces in the Iraqi army would be strictly to protect Kurdistan.

Speculation

-Am