Under The Radar

I haven't written about it in awhile, but the tensions in northern Iraq continue apace. The Turks are threatening to pursue Kurdish insurgents in northern Iraq, Sunni Arabs and Kurds are tense with each other, and (as usual) the U.S. is trying to stop the whole thing from blowing up.

An example of these tensions of the destruction of a major bridge from Baghdad into Kurdistan yesterday:

The killing and the bridge bombing reflected rising tensions in the oil-rich area between Kurds and Sunni insurgents who oppose Kurdish plans to make the area part of the north’s Kurdish-controlled region.

The Iraqi Constitution calls for a referendum on the issue this year and Iraqi and American officials have predicted that violence will increase before the vote.

Increasing attacks are likely to heighten tensions with Iraq’s northern neighbor, Turkey, which has complained bitterly in recent weeks that Iraq has done nothing to control a Kurdish militant group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, in southern Turkey. Turkey says that the United States, its NATO ally, should do more to force Iraq to control the Kurds.

Kurdish leaders have rejected the demands. On Saturday, Masood Barzani, president of Iraq’s Kurdish area, said, “Turkey does not have the right to interfere” in Kirkuk.

Let's hope this area keeps the pot merely simmering. A boil over would be devastating.