Kurds on Kirkuk Council call for Annexation of Oil City

Kurdish members of the Kirkuk/Tamim Province governing council called Friday for the city of Kirkuk to be annexed to the nearby Kurdistan Regional Authority. This move is vehemently rejected by Kirkuk’s Arabs and Turkmen. The federal government is calling for calm after this provocative act, which occurred while Arab and Turkmen delegates were boycotting the meetings of the provincial council.

One of the contributors to the project of counter-insurgency embraced by Gen. David Petraeus, David Kilcullen, said it was “f***ing stupid” to invade Iraq in 2003.

For a searching, detailed and intelligent dissection of what exactly happened in Baghdad during the Surge, see Derek Gregory’s “The Biopolitics of Baghdad.”

AFP profiles a Sunni Arab “sheriff” in Qaim.

Iraq’s lack of clean drinking water is threatening the country with a cholera outbreak.

Robert Naiman of Just Foreign Policy points out that if what the public wants is offshore drilling to alleviate the price of Petroleum, then it is unlikely to get its way. There isn’t enough oil offshore of the US to make an impact on prices. If the public is serious about more drilling, they should consider fighting the sanctions put on Iran by the Israel American Public Affairs Committee.