A political miscalculation by Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani – staging an independence referendum that prompted fierce retaliation by Baghdad – has set back hopes for a Kurdish state by decades, writes Joe Lauria.
After a U.S.-engineered “regime change” comes the dreamy period of “reform” — redrawing organizational boxes, slashing government programs and “privatizing” national assets, but rarely a commitment to realistic compromise among rival ethnic and political forces, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar describes in Iraq.