The violence in Iraq is ethnic as well as religious. Arabs and Kurds still strive to drive each other out of areas along the border of the autonomous Kurdish region in the north. Kurds are only a fifth of the population, but are better armed, equipped and trained and have maintained better relations with the U.S., other Western nations and Turkey. The Kurds continue to push for more terrain, especially the city of Kirkuk and its nearby oil fields. Iraqi Arabs have made it clear that they would go to war over Kirkuk, even if they were sure to lose.
I guess Turkey can use friends to the south to limit the sanctuary Turkish Kurds could find in northern Iraq and Iraq's Kurds could use a counter-weight to the Arab- and Shia-dominated central state in Baghdad (Kurds being Sunni but non-Arab).
But Iraq's Kurds need to be careful about pulling the trigger despite their powerful friend to the north. Make a break with Baghdad--even one that the Kurds win--and suddenly the Iraqi Kurds are locked into alliance with Turkey for access to the outside world.
Will Shia Iran which wants to influence and control Iraq side with non-Shias in the Kurdish region of Iraq and alienate Baghdad? Will Iran feel better about the Kurds of Iraq when they are cozy with Turkey, which is growing further apart from Iran?
So the autonomous and possibly independent Kurdish region of northern Iraq will find that Turkey has its hand on their throat and can squeeze whenever it needs to. What might Turkey want from their Kurdish friends in northern Iraq to keep the lines of supply open?
For the Kurds, friendship with Turkey is surely a valuable bargaining chip. But if it is the only game in town, the Kurds will lose their gamble.
