Let Turkey and Kurdistan Get Closer

Massimo Morelli and Costantino Pischedda in The National Interest: Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki’s scheduled visit to the White House tomorrow has brought Iraq and its relations with the United States into the limelight. Much of theattention has focused on mounting Sunni resentment towards Iraq’s Shiite-led government, the spillover from the Syrian civil war across the border and the surge of attacks perpetrated by the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).Analysts have rightly pointed out the need for reinvigorated US efforts to persuade Maliki to reverse his long-standing exclusion of the country’s Sunni minority and concentration of power in his own hands. However, the ongoing policy debate overlooks the opportunities associated with recent developments in Iraq’s Kurdistan region. These opportunities are real and the Obama administration should capitalize on them...