The government parties KDP and PUK represent a mixture of a tribal confederation and clientelistic party machinery which has covered the region with a financial patronage system. Over night here former refugees became millionaires. All these favorites must be supplied with positions in or related to the government. The consequence is an unbelievably blown up bureaucracy.

Long time Kurdistan was only an ethnic, linguistic and geographical unit. The region has about the size of France, over 500,000 km ², with approximate population of 4 million inhabitants. Out of them are approx. 3,4 million Kurds that are 80% followers of the Islamic branch of Sunnism, only a minority of several millions are practicing the Shia Islam. There rest of minorities are some Alevits, Yezidies, and the Ahl-e Haqq. Finally there some Turkmen, Arab, Turks, Azerbaijani and Persian minorities that are living peacefully together in Iraqi Kurdistan. Can Iraqi Kurdistan become a model for Iraq? Or will history repeat?

In my blog http://kurdistan.weebly.com/english.html I described that it does not make sense to use a cannon to shoot a sparrow and explained why Turkey did not marched into North Iraq and will not do so in a foreseeable future. The region in the North of Iraq is not just beautiful also people are interesting and worth plan a visit. But be sure you bring a lot sense of humor, be sure to be used to the absurd, to fell at ease in "Free Kurdistan".