Tom:

It's ironic to see all these folks emerge---now---with the reasons behind the lack of reconciliation in Iraq.

Anyone who studied the actual history of these conflict areas knows that the wash of one conflict over another, one minority over another, has been going on for generations.

A responder to a previous post about Kurdish problems pointed out, correctly, that the Turkmen dialect is not Turkish but Azerbaijani. Yes, but, during Ottoman rule, the Turkmen lived in the plain south of Kirkuk as Ottoman sentinels and messengers about Kurdish activities. Pre-1950's, pre-oil jobs, and pre-Saddaam, Kirkuk was a majority Turkmen municipality with strong historical, cultural and trade ties to Turkey. So the link to Turkey is deeper and more historical than simple ethnography suggests.

I find the comment about the maps pretty funny for personal reasons. As a geographic/demographic expert, I served on the UN Team in 2008, to "create" the maps to define the conflict areas. Yes, I said "create" because all the US maps were a complete mess, and probably contributed to later problems.

Mapping the shifting populations and conflicts over-time, is a sure way to reveal the breadth and scope of issues yet to be unraveled---now, once again, an Iraqi problem.Like so many conflict areas: everybody has a claim, and everybody is right, but there is only one piece of real estate.So, any solution will be complex and difficult to achieve.

H.L. Mencken said, "for every complex problem, there is a perfectly simple solution that is entirely wrong!"

At this point, the US can rest assured that it tried all the simple solutions.

“There is no history of ethnic conflict in Iraq.” – former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, explaining to Congress in February, 2003, why Gen. Eric K. Shinseki’s prediction that several hundred thousand troops would be needed in postwar Iraq was ''wildly off the mark.''

Would generally agree with the points made in this report. On the positive side, many of Iraq's problems are now being fought in the political realm rather than with force. That being said, Iraqi politics will continue to muddle along for years probably. I would blame the major parties (SIIC, Dawa, PUK-KDP, Islamic Party) for most of the problems. While they are actually the ruling coalition behind Maliki they are actually completely divided and power hungry, and are united in only one other thing, trying to take Maliki down. That's basically held up most major legislation.

There have actually been cross-sectarian coalitions in parliament made up of Sadrists, Allawi's Iraqi National List, Fadhila and others, which are united on nationalist issues. They are completely disunited as well however and pose no real threat to the major parties and rarely get together enough to push anything through parliament, although they did play a major role in the 2008 provincial election law, and a few others.

Yes, I followed in Gertrude Bell's footsteps, but unlike the Map Makers of the earlier 20th Century, useful modern maps are multi-dimensional.

It doesn't matter "where" things are so much as what they mean. The best maps today for political/historical analysis are more like multi-layered power points. I use them, for example, to show how, between the 1950s and 2003, the districts and sub-districts were carved and recarved, and how economic initiatives, political strife, war, temporary accords (like the KRG basing agreements), and refugee patterns pushed and pulled people across the landscape. It creates a much more clear understanding of what is faced in Iraq.

The KRG's issues are real, but,sometimes difficult to grasp on the ground today because of the huge number of villages destroyed during the 70's and 80's (Anfal, Iran/Iraq War). Plus, as they were displaced/resettled, this often came at someone else's expense (including Turkmen). Some of these major resettlement areas, including in and around Sinjar, create that complex environment that just takes a lot for people to resolve amongst themselves. The next map (the one that is most important) has not yet been drawn and agreed on---that is the nature of conflict zones.