Biden brings tough love to Georgia

By DOUGLAS BIRCH, Associated Press Writer

TBILISI, Georgia – A year after Georgia's disastrous war with Russia, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden assured the small country on Thursday that the United States stands behind it in their continuing conflicts with their region's dominant power.

But his message was tempered by tough love.

While saying Russia should withdraw its forces from two separatist Georgian regions, Biden also said Georgia should abandon any hopes of reclaiming those regions by force.

Further, he assured that the United States would stand behind Georgia's sovereignty, but Georgia must still strive to build a democratic society, six years after its peaceful Rose Revolution ousted a Soviet-era leader and brought President Mikhail Saakashvili to power.

"Your Rose Revolution will only be complete when government is transparent, accountable and fully participatory, when issues are debated inside this chamber, not only out on the streets," Biden told federal and local officials from across the former Soviet republic.

Georgia's opposition has held street protests since April to call for Saakashvili to step down, saying he has grown increasingly authoritarian.

Few nations are more pro-American than Georgia, and the audience listened in rapt silence for most of the speech delivered in the ornate chamber of the country's parliament building.

But Biden won several standing ovations when he criticized Russia's actions during and after its August 2008 war with Georgia. He pledged that the Obama administration would not abandon Georgia even as it sought to mend relations with Moscow, badly damaged by the Russian-Georgian war.

"I come here on behalf of the United States with a simple, straightforward message: We, the United States, stand by you on your journey to a secure, free and democratic, and once again united, Georgia," Biden said, bringing the audience to its feet.

After the outbreak of fighting in the separatist-held territory of South Ossetia, Russia sent tanks, troops and warplanes deep into Georgia in August.

Moscow later recognized the independence claims of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a separatist-held territory on the Black Sea. Only Nicaragua has followed suit.

Biden told the crowd that Georgia's best hope for reclaiming its lost territories wasn't military action — it was building a free, prosperous society that those territories would want to join.

"It's a sad certainty but it is true, there is no military option to reintegration," he said.

Saakashvili welcomed Biden's visit, saying it demonstrated the strong bonds between the two nations.

Biden also met with opposition leaders, who later praised the message he brought and his support for Georgia's sovereignty.

Irakly Alasania, a Saakashvili critic and former Georgian ambassador to the United Nations, lauded Biden's call for political and social reforms.

Biden told opposition leaders the U.S. stood behind the country, not Saakashvili individually, and "that the choice of president and a government is a matter for the Georgian people and not for any other state," said Nino Burdzhanadze, a former speaker of parliament.

Biden delivered the speech near the end of his two-day visit to Tbilisi, during which he and Saakashvili have discussed economic aid and a proposal for $16 million next year for military training and reorganization, officials on both sides said.

Biden's national security adviser Tony Blinken and a senior Georgian adviser denied that Saakashvili had asked Biden for anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons and U.S. participation in an EU observer mission along its border with the disputed regions. The U.S. official who had told that to reporters earlier Thursday said later he had spoken in error.

Saakashvili has previously expressed a strong interest in acquiring U.S. weapons as he seeks to rebuild his military after the war, and Georgian officials in recent days have said they wanted the U.S. to join the observer mission.

But Blinken said the Georgians have not formally requested heavy weapons, and that the EU has not invited U.S. participation in the mission. Blinken did not rule out the U.S. providing either after a formal request.

In Moscow, the government said it would not stand by while Georgia was resupplied with weapons.

"We will continue inhibiting rearmament of the Saakashvili regime," Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.

Georgia is one of the world's biggest recipients of U.S. foreign aid, receiving about $1 billion from Washington over the past year — most toward reconstruction and humanitarian relief.

Saakashvili said he remarked to Biden during a meal: "I told you there was no such thing as a free dinner in Georgia."

Israel concerned over US "umbrella" on Iran

By MARK LAVIE, Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM – A series of failed tests of a joint U.S.-Israel anti-missile system raised new questions Thursday about the U.S. goal of providing an "umbrella" to defend its allies against an Iranian nuclear attack.

The technological setbacks also drew renewed attention to Israel's concerns about a nuclear-armed Iran and the possibility that it might lean further in the direction of a go-it alone strike against the country's atomic facilities.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's offer this week of a "defense umbrella" over its Gulf Arab allies to prevent Tehran from dominating the region "once they have a nuclear weapon" was widely seen in Israel as an acceptance of a nuclear-armed Iran. She later tried to dispel that view, but her comments sparked criticism by Israeli officials.

Israel considers Iran its most dangerous enemy because of its nuclear program, long-range missile development and repeated references by its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to Israel's destruction. Iran has insisted that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but Israel and the U.S. reject that.

Adding to the urgency was word Wednesday from the head of the Russian nuclear agency that Iran's new atomic power plant will be switched on later this year.

For a decade, Israel has been presenting its "Arrow" anti-missile system, developed and jointly funded with the U.S., as an answer to medium-range Iranian missiles that might carry nuclear warheads. Tested repeatedly, the Arrow system has often succeeded in intercepting dummy incoming missiles, to great fanfare.

But just as Clinton worried Israelis by speaking of an umbrella over U.S. allies threatened by Iran, word came of three test failures in the Arrow system over the past week. The latest was in California, where a test was aborted before the Arrow missile could be launched because of a communications failure, according to Israeli defense officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details of the tests.

Experts played down the importance of the failures. "Arrow has had a pretty successful test program," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org. "I wouldn't be overly concerned about a problem like this."

Uzi Rubin, former director of the Arrow project, agreed. "It's really not a very serious glitch in the system that would require going back to the drawing board," he said.

But the failures underlined the complexity of the whole anti-missile concept, which has been compared to throwing a rock in the air and trying to hit it with another rock. Israeli media personalities wondered if any system could protect Israel if multiple rockets were fired together.

If Clinton's "umbrella" offer, made in a television interview in Thailand, was meant to reassure nervous Israelis, it had the opposite effect.

Dan Meridor, Israel's minister of intelligence and atomic energy, was critical of Clinton's implications.

He said it appeared "as if they have already come to terms with a nuclear Iran. I think that's a mistake." He told Army Radio, "I think that at this time it is correct not to deal with the assumption that Iran will obtain nuclear capability, but to prevent that from happening."

Ever since President Barack Obama took office with a pledge to explore diplomatic contacts with Iran, Israeli officials have voiced concerns that talks would give Iran more time to develop nuclear weapons. Israelis have also suspected that the Obama administration was planning for a future Mideast that included a nuclear-armed Iran — something Israel would consider a threat to its existence.

Hours after Meridor spoke, Clinton clarified her remarks, saying she was "not suggesting any new policy" on Iran and continued to believe that "Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons is unacceptable."

U.S. officials have not defined what Clinton meant by her original "umbrella" comment.

Analysts offered two contrasting explanations: a threat of retaliation for any Iranian nuclear strike, or supplying U.S. allies with defense systems aimed at preventing such an attack.

The umbrella formulation did not appear to include Israel, though about 150 American soldiers have been training with Israeli soldiers in the southern Negev desert for several months on advanced radar installations that could be used in missile defense, according to Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the project.

Israel has pointedly not taken the option of a military strike off the table, recalling Israel's lightning 1981 airstrike that destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor.

Experts doubt Israel has the capability of wiping out all of Iran's nuclear facilities, which are said to be scattered around the country, some of them hidden. But hitting well chosen targets could set back Iran's nuclear ambitions for years.

Political analyst Gerald Steinberg, a professor at Israel's Bar Ilan University, said a perception that the U.S. was backing away from preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons "could add to Israeli decision makers' concerns that the U.S. isn't going to take action, and so Israel should."

But Israel has not broadcast an urge to attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long urged concerted international action, including tougher sanctions, and hard-line Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has said that Israel would not attack Iran just to do the work of others.

Lieberman is visiting South America, and the Foreign Ministry spokesman in Jerusalem refused to comment on the issue of the "umbrella."

Clinton, North Korea exchange barbs on nukes

By DENIS D. GRAY, Associated Press Writer

PHUKET, Thailand – Hillary Rodham Clinton and North Korea exchanged pointed barbs Thursday, with Clinton declaring North Korea "has no friends left" and the communist regime calling the U.S. secretary of state a "schoolgirl."

The sharp words came as North Korea announced it had refused to re-enter talks to terminate its nuclear weapons program.

Clinton said the world has made it clear to Pyongyang that it has "no place to go," citing near unanimity among Asian nations, including China, on fully enforcing the latest U.N. sanctions against North Korea for its repeated nuclear and missile tests.

Warning the North's nuclear ambitions could spark an arms race in the region, Clinton said the U.S. would continue to vigorously enforce tough U.N. sanctions and insist that the north "irreversibly denuclearize."

But she held out the prospect of restoring U.S. diplomatic ties and other incentives — actions the Obama administration would be willing to consider if the North Koreans dismantle their nuclear program.

"We urge North Korea to return to the six-party talks, look beyond the past and join others in finding the way forward," said Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya, who hosted the ASEAN Regional Forum, a security conference among 27 countries and organizations that ended Thursday.

Clinton, who trumpeted Washington's renewed involvement in Asia during the conference, departed the resort island for Washington, wrapping up a weeklong trip to India and Thailand.

"North Korea's continued pursuit of its nuclear ambitions is sure to elevate tensions on the Korean peninsula and could provoke an arms race in the region," Clinton told a news conference before her departure.

Just moments before she spoke, a spokesman for the North Korean delegation said his government would not return to talks with the U.S., Japan, South Korea, China and Russia, citing the "deep-rooted anti-North Korean policy" of the United States.

"The six-party talks are over," Ri Hung Sik said, calling any proposed U.S. incentives "nonsense."

North Korea's Foreign Ministry, reacting to an earlier Clinton comment likening the regime to "small children" demanding attention, described her Thursday as "a funny lady" who sometimes "looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping."

Clinton offered a somewhat more optimistic message about another trouble spot on the U.S. foreign policy agenda: Myanmar, the military-run southeast Asian nation also known as Burma.

She praised Myanmar's government for committing to enforce the U.N. sanctions against North Korea, calling it important in light of Myanmar's suspected secret military links to North Korea. "There is a positive direction that we see with Burma," she said.

Clinton suggested Myanmar may have played a role this month in persuading a North Korean cargo ship suspected of carrying weaponry in violation of the sanctions to return home instead of continuing to its destination, which U.S. officials said was probably Myanmar.

Clinton also called on Myanmar to unconditionally release democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is accused of violating the terms of her house arrest and faces a five-year prison term.

On North Korea, Clinton stressed a point she has made repeatedly — that a fully nuclear North Korea might compel other countries in Asia to follow suit. She mentioned no names, but Japan and South Korea are thought to be among those that might go nuclear if they felt threatened by the North and less than fully confident of protection under a U.S. nuclear umbrella.

North Korea's leaders, Clinton said, "have no friends left that will protect them from the international community's efforts to move toward denuclearization."

Clinton also said she "wanted to make very clear that the United States does not seek any kind of offensive action against North Korea."

Citing complaints from a North Korean delegate that Pyongyang has been subjected to U.S. nuclear threats, Clinton said this showed a disconnect with reality, given that U.S. nuclear weapons were removed from South Korea nearly 20 years ago.

Clinton said she was disappointed when the North Korean delegate refused to "recognize that North Korea has been on the wrong course" in his address to the conference.

"The bottom line is this: If North Korea intends to engage in international commerce its vessels must conform to terms" of the U.N. sanctions, "or find no port," she said.

"Our goal in enforcing these sanctions and others proposed earlier is not to create suffering or destabilize North Korea. Our quarrel is not with the North Korean people."

South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said the North's negotiating partners agreed in Phuket to open the door for a dialogue with Pyongyang while enforcing the U.N. sanctions.

Clinton said the Obama administration would soon send Philip Goldberg, its coordinator for implementing the U.N. sanctions, back to Asia for a new round of consultations on a joint enforcement strategy.

US military deaths in Afghanistan region at 675

As of Thursday, July 23, 2009, at least 675 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. The department last updated its figures Thursday at 10 a.m. EDT.

Of those, the military reports 504 were killed by hostile action.

Outside the Afghan region, the Defense Department reports 68 more members of the U.S. military died in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Of those, three were the result of hostile action. The military lists these other locations as Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba; Djibouti; Eritrea; Ethiopia; Jordan; Kenya; Kyrgyzstan; Philippines; Seychelles; Sudan; Tajikistan; Turkey; and Yemen.

There were also four CIA officer deaths and one military civilian death.

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The latest deaths reported by the military:

• A soldier died Thursday in an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan.

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The latest identifications reported by the military:

• The following two soldiers died Wednesday in Zabul Province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive detonated near their vehicle. They were assigned to the 4th Engineer Battalion, Fort Carson, Colo.

• Army Sgt. Joshua J. Rimer, 24, Rochester, Pa.

• Army Spc. Randy L.J. Neff, Jr., 22, Blackfoot, Idaho.

US intelligence gathering in Afghanistan expanded

By RICHARD LARDNER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – U.S. military authorities in Afghanistan are assembling a potent intelligence-gathering operation to help defeat the Taliban insurgency, a senior Defense Department official said Thursday.

A combination of unmanned aerial vehicles and sensor-laden aircraft with links to ground forces will give commanders an "unblinking eye" over the war-torn country, Michael Vickers, the Pentagon's top special operations official, said.

Use of high-technology assets proved essential in Iraq, he said, and are key to negating the Taliban's ability to plan and carry out attacks around the country.

"Systemically taking apart the network through intelligence-led operations is a very important feature of modern counterinsurgency," Vickers said.

But he added that victory in Afghanistan is up to the Afghans.

"We want to bring every available technology we can to bear, but ultimately it will be won and lost on the ground, and it will be won and lost by the Afghan people," he said at a meeting with defense reporters.

The stakes are growing higher in Afghanistan, where President Barack Obama is adding thousands of more troops to defeat the Taliban. The Islamist regime was ousted in 2001 after a U.S.-led invasion, but has made a strong comeback after U.S. military forces were shifted to Iraq.

About 68,000 U.S. troops will be in the country by fall, more than twice as many as were there last year. The growing violence has made July the deadliest month for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Vickers said more Predator unmanned aerial vehicles will be sent to Afghanistan. The Predator can carry missiles to hit targets on the ground. A large fleet of missile-carrying Reaper drones is being readied for Afghanistan, he added.

Manned C-12 aircraft are also providing surveillance and gathering intelligence in Afghanistan.

Iran president defies supreme leader over deputy

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI and LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writers

TEHRAN, Iran – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad showed rare defiance of his strongest backer, Iran's supreme leader, by insisting on his choice for vice president Wednesday despite vehement opposition from hard-liners that has opened a deep rift in the conservative leadership.

The tussle over the appointment comes at a time when the clerical leadership is facing its strongest challenge in decades following last month's disputed presidential election.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's top concern appears to be keeping the strong support of clerical hard-liners so he can withstand attempts by the more moderate, pro-reform opposition to erode his authority.

Conservative clerics and politicians have denounced Ahmadinejad's choice for the post of first vice president, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, because Mashai said last year that Iranians are friends with Israelis. There are also concerns because Mashai is a relative of Ahmadinejad — his daughter is married to the president's son.

Khamenei ordered Ahmadinejad to remove Mashai, semiofficial media reported Wednesday.

Arguing for a further chance to make his case, Ahmadinejad said, "there is a need for time and another opportunity to fully explain my real feelings and assessment about Mr. Mashai."

The president may be digging in because he fears an attempt by hard-liners to dictate the government he is due to form next month.

At the center of the dispute between the president and supreme leader is Mashai, a member of Ahmadinejad's personal inner circle. Iran has 12 vice presidents, and Mashai has been serving in one of the slots in charge of tourism and culture. Ahmadinejad said last week he was elevating Mashai to the first vice presidency. That is the most important of the 12 because it is in line to succeed the president if he dies, is incapacitated or removed. The first vice president also leads Cabinet meetings in the president's absence.

Ahmadinejad is a member of the hard-line camp, but throughout his first term he had disputes over policy and appointments with fellow conservatives, some of whom accused him of hoarding too much power for close associates rather than spreading it among factions.

Most surprising is Ahmadinejad's defiance of Khamenei's order for Mashai's removal. The supreme leader has been the president's top defender in the election dispute, dismissing opposition claims that Ahmadinejad's victory in the June 12 vote was fraudulent. The opposition says pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi was the real winner and calls Ahmadinejad's government illegitimate.

Hard-line clerics on Wednesday demanded the president obey Khamenei.

Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said whether Mashai is immediately dismissed "will test Ahmadinejad's loyalty to the supreme leader."

"When the exalted supreme leader takes a position explicitly, his statement must be accepted by all means and implemented immediately," he said, according to the Mehr news agency. "Those who voted for Ahmadinejad because of his loyalty to the supreme leader expect the president to show his obedience ... in practice."

Ahmadinejad may believe Khamenei's rejection of Mashai is not written in stone and is testing whether he can keep his close associate.

Iran expert Suzanne Maloney pointed out that the supreme leader has not publicly spoken on the issue and reports of his order have been leaked by hard-liners through semiofficial media.

"If Khamenei comes out in Friday prayers calling for (Mashai's) removal, then it would be difficult to imagine Ahmadinejad would refuse that," said Maloney, with the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Washington-based Brookings think tank.

Ahmadinejad is "not looking to open his second term by picking a fight with his most important ally in the system," she said.

Khamenei's order to remove Mashai is unusual extension of his powers — perhaps a sign he wants to strengthen his position as unquestioned leader in the face of the reformist threat.

As supreme leader, Khamenei has ultimate say in state affairs and stands at the peak of the unelected clerical leadership that under Iran's Islamic Republic can overrule the elected presidency and parliament.

Traditionally, the supreme leader has stayed out of a public role in government appointments. He is believed often to informally vet choices for senior positions behind the scenes, but he does not have a formal role in approving them or an official power to remove them. Even under Iran's 1997-2005 pro-reform government, with which Khamenei clashed, he never overtly ousted any of its officials.

Now Khamenei is facing tests to his authority on two fronts. One is from Ahmadinejad, the other is the open defiance from the reformist opposition, which has continued its campaign against Ahmadinejad despite the supreme leader's declarations that the election dispute is over.

Powerful moderate clerics in the religious leadership under Khamenei have backed Mousavi or declined to recognize Ahmadinejad as the victor. Hundreds of thousands held mass protests in support of Mousavi in the weeks after the election, but were crushed in a heavy crackdown that killed at least 20 protesters and left more than 500 in prison. Still, the opposition has managed to hold two smaller protests since, and is demanding a referendum on Ahmadinejad's legitimacy.

The announcement outraged hard-liners, who have opposed Mashai since he said in 2008 that Iranians were "friends of all people in the world — even Israelis." Mashai also angered many top clerics in 2007 when he attended a ceremony in Turkey where women performed a traditional dance and in 2008 when he hosted a ceremony in which women played tambourines. Conservative interpretations of Islam oppose women dancing.

After days of controversy, Khamenei weighed in. The semiofficial Fars news agency reported Wednesday that Ahmadinejad had been notified of the leader's order to remove Mashai.

The deputy parliament speaker, Mohammad Hasan Aboutorabi-Fard, said late Tuesday that Mashai's dismissal was "a strategic decision" by the system of ruling clerics and he must be removed "without delay," according to the semiofficial ISNA news.

Later Wednesday, Ahmadinejad stuck by Mashai in a speech at Mashai's farewell ceremony from his lower vice presidential post.

"One of virtues and glories God has bestowed to me in life was to get acquainted with this great, honest and pious man," Ahmadinejad said, according to the state news agency IRNA. He said he has "a thousand reasons" to support Mashai and that there was "no convincing" reason for the attacks on his choice.

Why Kurds vs. Arabs Could Be Iraq's Next Civil War

By ANDREW LEE BUTTERS

With a projected capacity of about 40,000 bbl. a day, the new oil refinery inaugurated on July 18 by the Kurdish regional government of northern Iraq is modest even by the standards of Iraq's dilapidated oil industry. But its significance shouldn't be underestimated: in Kurdish minds, the region's ability to refine the oil it pumps is a vital step toward deepening its autonomy from the Arab-majority remainder of Iraq.

Until recently, Iraqi Kurdistan had no refineries of its own, and though the area is sitting on a huge pool of oil, it had to rely on gasoline supplies from elsewhere in Iraq, Turkey or Iran. Fearful of giving Iraq's ethnic Kurdish minority any control over the country's most precious resource, Saddam Hussein had not only declined to build refineries in the region; he made sure Iraq's oil pipelines bypassed Kurdish areas, and his army forcibly removed much of the Kurdish population from Kirkuk - the most important oil-producing area in the north - and repopulated the city with Arabs from the south.

Since Saddam's demise, however, the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is steadily developing an independent oil industry in northern Iraq. It has discovered and begun to develop new oil fields inside its boundaries, and has entered production-sharing deals with foreign oil companies that were made without the consent of the federal government in Baghdad. Those deals have raised suspicions among Iraq's Arab-dominated government that KRG is not simply taking on more of the prerogatives of sovereign statehood but is actually laying the economic infrastructure for independence.

For their part, Kurdish officials suspect that Baghdad's failure to pass a national oil law (which would give Iraq's provincial governments greater control over the industry in their territory) and its failure to press ahead with a referendum to settle Kurdish claims to Kirkuk and other disputed areas are signs that the Arab majority plans to settle matters in its favor.

Such is the enmity, in fact, that KRG's president, Massoud Barzani, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki haven't spoken in over a year. Recently, KRG Prime Minister Nechirwan Barzani said that Arab-Kurdish relations in Iraq are at their lowest point since Saddam was in power. With Iraq's Sunni-Shi'ite sectarian violence largely in check, the Kurdish-Arab dispute has become the most worrisome fault line in Iraq.

Ever since the U.S. invasion, the Kurds of northern Iraq have enjoyed many of the trappings of sovereignty. Kurds have their own parliament and executive government, plus an 80,000-strong army (the Pesh Merga militia) and control over their borders, which Baghdad-controlled security forces are not allowed to enter. Despite the fact that the vast majority of Kurds want independence from Iraq, their leaders have proceeded with caution, mindful of the risks. Their small, landlocked region is surrounded by neighbors - Turkey, Syria, Iran - whose own restive Kurdish minorities make them hostile to the prospect of an independent Kurdish state emerging in Iraq.

While the rest of Iraq was in the grip of insurgency and sectarian civil war, the Kurds quietly advanced their economic-development policies, building an international airport, business hotels and hydro-electric dams and - most important - doing oil deals. They explained this autonomous engagement with international oil markets on the grounds that they couldn't wait for the barely functional Iraqi state to get its house in order. Indeed, such is the dismal state of Iraq's oil production (not yet back at pre-invasion levels, which were a fraction of its full potential) that in June, the Iraqi government allowed the Kurds to begin pumping oil extracted from newly developed Kurdish oil fields through federal pipelines for export sale to Turkey. (Currently, only Iraqi government companies can sell oil, the revenue from which is shared among the regions.)

Kurds have also grown impatient with Baghdad's stance on disputed territories. According to the Iraqi constitution, the central government should hold a referendum in the Kurdish-populated areas of four Iraqi governorates in northern Iraq (including Kirkuk) to determine whether they should remain under Baghdad's control or become part of the KRG. But even before that takes place, the constitution commits the Iraqi government to a potentially explosive reversing of Saddam's "Arabization" policies in these areas, moving Arabs out and Kurds in.

The Iraqi government has postponed the referendum several times from its original date in 2007, citing the understandable excuse that it could spark a new civil war between Kurds and Arabs.

But now that Iraq's government is increasingly stable, Kurdish leaders fear that Baghdad is merely playing for time, allowing the Iraqi military to grow in strength and capability as the U.S. moves to draw down, allowing the Iraqi government eventually to settle the issue the old-fashioned way: with tanks. Already, Kurdish and Iraqi forces have nearly clashed on several occasions in the disputed territories.

Last month, Kurdish lawmakers passed a regional constitution that unilaterally laid claim to the disputed territories and the oil resources in them. Though some Iraqi officials have said that the constitution amounts to a Kurdish declaration of independence, Kurdish leaders are pushing for a referendum to be held on the constitution as early as August.

Meanwhile, the domestic politics of both the Kurdish region and the wider Arab Iraq are pushing the two sides toward confrontation. In Kurdistan, where parliamentary elections will be held on June 25, a new party called Change is mounting the first significant challenge to the duopoly of Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. The new party is gaining ground by tapping into growing dissatisfaction with government corruption and nepotism. Although the parties credited with delivering today's de facto independence are likely to win, they have moved to strengthen their position by sharpening their tone toward Baghdad as the election approaches.

Baghdad has troubles of its own, which creates an incentive for Kurd-bashing. Most Iraqi Arabs have even less faith in their corrupt leadership class than Kurds have in theirs. And as al-Maliki consolidates his grip on power and styles himself as Iraq's new strongman, he may find that promising to push back against Kurdish efforts to dismember Iraq could help rally Arab Iraqis, both Sunni and Shi'ite, behind him. Hey, it worked for Saddam.