Iraqi Kurds make their big and totally predicted move

From a NY Times article today :

"With little notice and almost no public debate, Iraq’s Kurdish leaders are pushing ahead with a new constitution for their semiautonomous region, a step that has alarmed Iraqi and American officials who fear that the move poses a new threat to the country’s unity."

Well, it looks like the Kurds are making their big move to secure their hold on Iraq's oil futures — the big bone of contention between the separatist and ethnically isolated Kurds and their Arab neighbors to the south. We always knew it would come at some point. It'll be interesting to see how this new source of formal division in the Iraqi political context plays out alongside the withdrawal of American troops from major population centers and the near-complete turnover of control to the Green Zone government. Ay yay yay.