the sunni areas of iraq might have oil after all.
the article is bizarrely optimistic. when you look around the world, the presence of oil often ends up being a curse, not a blessing. it generally leads to more violence and authoritarianism, not less.
the best spin i can put on it is that it might make the breakup of iraq more likely. right now the kurds want independence and so do some of the shia in the south. both live in oil-producing areas. the sunnis have opposed breaking up the country, in part, because that would leave them with an impoverished oil-free portion of iraq. even talks about regional autonomy have been mired by arguments over how to share oil revenues (which is really a coded debate over how much shia and kurdish oil profits will be given to sunnis who don't have oil).
if all three bits of iraq have oil, then the fight over the national oil pie becomes less critical. but that means that a fragmented iraq is more likely as the sunnis no longer have an incentive to keep iraq united. and fragmentation opens up a whole other can of worms: e.g. turkey has promised to intervene if there is an independent kurdistan; the sunni-ruled gulf states will not like an independent shia arab state right next to their shia-minority regions.
