Here is my take on the situation for what it is worth.
Iraq will be a new Syria. Maliki has so alienated the Sunni population and is rapidly turning this fight into a sectarian conflict that the Sunni population will support ISIS purely on the ground that they are Sunni, even though they dislike their extremism (Iran is fueling the flames). The Shia government are likely to hold Baghdad and the south, but will struggle to take back much of the territory lost, despite their superior forces and equipment.This fight will go on for a long time. It is likely that the ISIS territory will also degenerate into ugly infighting.
The Kurds will hold their ground, avoid an immediate conflict and chose their time to go independent. They now control all but 5% of the areas with a Kurdish majority. ISIS are a mix of Al Quaeda and old Baathists (Saddam Hussein's party), and Kurds hate them with a passion and ISIS are not fans the Kurds either. Eventually, ISIS and the Kurds will seriously clash even though they are both Sunni.
Knowing this, the other alternative is that the Kurds, with their more experienced and more disciplined fighters, will support the Maliki government, despite their difficulties and misgivings, motivated solely by fact that war will eventually be inevitable with a ISIS government. Best to deal with the problem now rather than later when ISIS are stronger and more established. The pay off for the Kurds will be that they retain all the Kurdish majority territory, control their own oil sales and go into 'co-federation' with Iraq rather than the existing 'autonomous' arrangement.
An immediate problem for Kurdistan is that they now have a large and mainly refugee Arab population and it will take a huge effort to manage that carefully. The KRG have repeatedly stated that they are a multi-ethnic and religiously tolerant state, but this huge influx of Arabs is going to push that tolerance to the limit.
Whatever happens a lot of people are going to die.
Iraq will be a new Syria. Maliki has so alienated the Sunni population and is rapidly turning this fight into a sectarian conflict that the Sunni population will support ISIS purely on the ground that they are Sunni, even though they dislike their extremism (Iran is fueling the flames). The Shia government are likely to hold Baghdad and the south, but will struggle to take back much of the territory lost, despite their superior forces and equipment.This fight will go on for a long time. It is likely that the ISIS territory will also degenerate into ugly infighting.
The Kurds will hold their ground, avoid an immediate conflict and chose their time to go independent. They now control all but 5% of the areas with a Kurdish majority. ISIS are a mix of Al Quaeda and old Baathists (Saddam Hussein's party), and Kurds hate them with a passion and ISIS are not fans the Kurds either. Eventually, ISIS and the Kurds will seriously clash even though they are both Sunni.
Knowing this, the other alternative is that the Kurds, with their more experienced and more disciplined fighters, will support the Maliki government, despite their difficulties and misgivings, motivated solely by fact that war will eventually be inevitable with a ISIS government. Best to deal with the problem now rather than later when ISIS are stronger and more established. The pay off for the Kurds will be that they retain all the Kurdish majority territory, control their own oil sales and go into 'co-federation' with Iraq rather than the existing 'autonomous' arrangement.
An immediate problem for Kurdistan is that they now have a large and mainly refugee Arab population and it will take a huge effort to manage that carefully. The KRG have repeatedly stated that they are a multi-ethnic and religiously tolerant state, but this huge influx of Arabs is going to push that tolerance to the limit.
Whatever happens a lot of people are going to die.
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