Kurds move on regional oil law

Acting on well established, de facto autonomy, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have decided they can neither wait for nor trust the gang of criminals in Baghdad, otherwise known as the Maliki government, to pass an Oil Law that will serve the interests of Iraqis and, in particular, those of Kurdistan. The Kurds are, no doubt, particularly sensitive to being fucked over by Washington, which has been pressing for the passage of the Oil Law in its current form. Naturally, suspicions abound.

With the oil workers union protesting the law and recently being banned from government jobs because of it, the Kurds have rightly moved toward passing their own oil law. This itself is fraught with difficulty, as longtime and occasionally murderous rivals, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), wrestle over their own version of an oil law. Nonetheless, an interesting move on the part of the KRG, as everyone suspects Maliki, whose hold on power is looking more and more tenuous as days pass, of doing Washington's bidding. And I doubt anyone in Iraq -- Maliki excepted -- is keen on looking like that.