Also the US government has lowered its goals in Iraq, let’s be frank and there is less push from the government, but violence is down that’s certainly a good thing.  And there are- in future prospects there are some good signs, certainly the security forces are doing much better.  The municipal elections brought the Sunnis back into the process to a significant degree.  Maliki himself has proved to be a much stronger and more effective prime minister than anyone expected.  Everybody thought he was really weak.  There was a- if you remember the Hadley Memo that lead to the administration about thinking whether the US government should try to get rid of him.  If anyone remembers Vietnam would realize that that wasn’t such a great idea anyway.  But, of course, maybe he has proven to be a little too strong for some people, we can mention that in a minute, and in some areas I think in many areas reconciliation is proceeding.  There’s a lot of effort on the USI, U.S. Institute for Peace.

There’s a lot of people out there really working on reconciliation, doing a great job but- now is a good thing, previously you have this Iraqi Alliance, you had monolithic blocks; now you’re beginning to see the political situation breaking down.  Maliki is taking advantage of this and making some deals with Sunnis and so forth and he has managed to split some of the other sheer groups who previously were much more powerful than his own Dawa party.  And so in the splintering you see some cooperation along sectarian lines which is a good sign certainly.  But, you know, we still not home by any means, there are a number of major dangers.  As a matter of fact, there is a very good piece in the New York Times today if anybody looked at the long list of the- the situation I thought really said it very well, but here’s my take on it anyway.  One thing that is quite obvious is that Arab-Kurdish tensions have really risen.  The Kurds, there is a legal enmity which goes back to the buff called Iraqi-Kurdistan which has about three provinces, 10% of the country.  Iraq- the Kurds actually control about 17% of the country, and if you look at that little map, you can see their areas are considerably larger than Iraq-Kurdistan.  Some of these areas, Akra, for example, in the north are solidly Kurdish.  Others like the Diyala are mixed and, of course, the really dangerous one is Kirkuk.

The UN has come up with a proposal for special administration which strikes me of long felt is the only possibly solution that would neither be part of Iraq proper or part of Kurdistan but under a special regime maybe getting some kind of UN presence but getting the four elements that the Kurds, the Turkmans, the Christians, and the Muslim Arabs, altogether and cooperating in a government.  I know this is an issue of particularly concern of Turkey.  Historically, I think it’s always been a mixed city but maybe a hundred years ago when I was very small certainly the biggest group was Turkman, but as oil developed, Kurds flooded in from the countryside and just to the east of Kurdistan you have mountains full of Kurds.  They came in and settled and then became perhaps the largest single group but and then, of course, especially end of the buff, they began pushing both Kurds, Turkmen out and bringing in first and among the- mainly at the beginning Shia Arabs later some Sunni Arabs.  Christians have always been there although it’s shrinking.  So, and then the country with a little history of tolerance and getting along with each other, this is indeed a very dangerous situation.  But I think it’s one of area in which the United States would intervene pretty drastically because the Kurds have their own army.  Right now they might be something of a match for the Iraqi army, but I don’t think with our influence over the Kurds and so forth, I don’t think and I still influence in the central government I think we could prevent a conflict but it is risky.