Word: kurdistan
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...running on its record of providing security and disarming Iraq's militias. The more Sunni and secular Iraqi National Movement, led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, is likewise in favor of a strong central government. The push for decentralization is represented by the ruling parties of the Kurdistan Regional Government and an alliance of Shi'ite parties - led by Ammar al-Hakim and chastened warlord Muqtada al-Sadr, among others - that critics claim is bent on creating a semiautonomous Shi'ite enclave in oil-rich southern Iraq...
...Virtues of Compromise These issues are political dynamite. Devolving power to Kurdistan or to the Shi'ite south - the two safest, richest parts of Iraq - could reignite the civil war between Shi'ites and Sunnis or start an additional one between Arabs and Kurds. But to centralize all power in a country with a history of totalitarianism has its own perils. That's why Iraqis will be watching their elections closely: not just to see the results but also to gauge whether their leadership class can accept the outcome of the vote and move forward peacefully. That will...
...Islamic Republic has supported anti-American Shi'ite militias and political parties ever since. Iran won't be the only country likely to flex its muscles after the election. Turkey - which has a restive Kurdish minority of its own - will try to block any further devolution of power to Kurdistan. And last month, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah invited leaders of a pro-Sunni coalition to visit Riyadh, a sign that the kingdom would like to play a role as protector of Iraq's Sunnis. "Everyone in the region will try to occupy Iraq," says Sheik Hussam al-Mojammai...
...Kurdish north. Those pushing centralization include Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shi'ite dominated State of Law coalition, and the ideologically similar, but more Sunni and more secular, Iraqiya coalition, led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Pushing for decentralization are the ruling parties of the Kurdistan Regional Government - the Kurdish enclave of northern Iraq - and an alliance of Shi'te parties led by Ammar al-Hakim, Ahmed Chalabi and Moqtada al-Sadr among others - which critics claim is bent on creating a semiautonomous Shi'ite enclave in oil-rich southern Iraq...
...That change may also be caused by shifts in the sectarian fault lines. Instead of Shi'ite-vs.-Sunni conflict, tensions now are mounting inside ethnic and sectarian groups. The duopolistic ruling parties of Iraqi Kurdistan find themselves under threat from a breakaway movement - Goran, or "change" - more interested in cleaning up politics in the Kurdistan Regional Government than in accelerating Kurdish autonomy from the rest of Iraq. And there's been plenty of bad blood between al-Maliki and the fundamentalist Shi'ite parties of the Iraqi National Alliance ever since the Prime Minister sent the army...