“The off-the-record answer from nearly everyone is: “No Arabs.”
Well this as you said may not be ‘precisely’ true, but even though the Kurds are ‘accepting’ 7000 Arabs a month into their areas, are these ‘immigrants’ not subject to some serious security analysis before being granted status ?
The Kurds are not just allowing every Omar,Ali, or Saddam to set up residence in Kurdistan are they ?
I think the ‘no Arabs’ is meant more as an indication of the widespread belief that the predominant Arab’ culture’ is viewed by the Kurds as ‘defective’, and that they blame it and its adherents for the insanity now gripping the area, and of course for their past horrors as well.
And were there not widespread ‘popular’ protests at the dispatch of Kurdish units to the insane asylum that Baghdad has become ? I don’t really believe that the Kurds want ANYTHING to do with the non-Kurdish part of the Iraqi Army except at a long-arms length. They certainly don’t want them in KURDISTAN. EVER.
While they may ‘allow’ needed workers in as long as they have been ‘vetted’ for obvious signs of Nutbarism, I don’t think they really want to have much to do with ‘Arabs’ as a ‘social force’.
Frankly who can possibly blame them at this point.
First the Baathists — now the Jihadists.
Perhaps you might revisit this article when the Kurds finally get around to ‘settling’ the Kirkuk question. Settling as in bidding bon voyage to many of those Arabs who were trucked in by the Saddam regime in order to alter the ‘facts-on-the-ground’ in that area.
While it may not be ‘fair’ I think it is not inaccurate to say that–
Kurdistan = Sane.
Rest of Iraq = Not So Much.
If the Kurds could build a dam separating them permanently from Iraq I think they would be building like beavers on speed.
