Another characteristic of the country, of course, coming back again is the antipathy between Arabs and Kurds. The Kurds have a history particularly under Saddam a really brutal mistreatment. My argument is and Peter Galbraith would probably disagree with me that with their heart, the Kurds would love to be independent when they had a referendum, they voted overwhelmingly for independence. But for the elite or for the leaders, they realized that the current conditions if they continue are probably the best possible conditions for the Kurds in Iraq and that is de facto independent or full autonomy whatever you wanna call it, but also a chance to participate in the larger state of Iraq with its oil wealth and its potential. If you think what Kurdistan would be like as an independent state, I mean we all know how a Turkey feels about this but it wouldn’t be only Turkey, there would be three or four unfriendly state surrounding it would be landlocked even though there is some oil up around Kirkuk, 80% of the oil was in the south, so there would be a limited possibility for oil and perhaps are closed borders, no open airspace. It wouldn’t make much sense for the Kurds to be formally independent. I mean now they have full autonomy, they have their own flag, their own parliament, they have their own army in effects.
They have in the de facto basis pretty much all the necessary elements and as long as they can be part of Iraq but not be ruled by Iraq I think they have the best possible arrangement. As far as the Shia majority is concerned, first of all, the Shia population of Iraq is only a couple of centuries old. There is an interesting story how it came about but if you wanna ask and as a question, fine, but it is a little bit off the subject. I have never felt that in general that the Shia in general are all that religious when you get outside the two holy cities which still even now have a strong Persian presence, you get out in the tribes of the south and even in cities like Basra you find that- I’m not saying their unreligious but they’re not all that strongly religiously and I think what you’ve seen in the last couple of years a certain reaction to the extremism of the Shia Militias and the people who have gone around killing people or mistreating women and so forth in the name of Shia Islam. I also think that you need to remember that the Shia of Iraq are Arabs. Traditionally the Arabs of Iraq had not like Persians, Persians don’t like the Iraqi Arabs either so it’s mutual. And I think- I’m not saying there isn’t any issue of Iranian influence there, but I think you could easily exaggerate the risks and I don’t think you would see anything like an Islamic revolution in Iraq.