Steve Gilliard explains why the Kurds-willing-to-start-a-civil-war thing is such a potential problem:
See, most of Kurdistan lies in….Turkey, and a fair portion in Iran.
So, the Turks, who burnt down 4,000 Kurdish villages and raped and slaughtered their way across southeast Turkey, might see the formation of a Kurdish state as a threat. And all those “compliant” Shia, especially Moqtada Sadr, might also object to Kurdistan. The Shia don’t need to form a seperate state to run Iraq.
The Kurds are trying to bribe the Turks into acceptance with fat contracts, but Ankara will kill for territorial integrity and so will Sadr, who does not want to run half an Iraq. Nor will Turkey let the Turkomen be screwed. As far as Mosul goes, is the US willing to kill Kurds to prevent a wider civil war.
Of course, I would only point out that the Iraqi Army is merely a shell for militias. Why do Americans assume that Iraqis will put their national ambitions on hold because we say so?
They are betting long odds that the US won’t stab them in the back like they did in 1974. The tolerance the Kurds now receive is not unrestricted. If they move towards Mosul, hard choices will have to be made.
The Kurds and Turkey may not like each other, but they need each other very much. The Kurds have oil they need to sell and Europe is their best market. Turkey is the easiest way to that market, and since Turkey is negotiating to join the EU, the Kurds would gain by dealing with Turkey. Their other choices are worse: Iran who don’t a Kurdish state; or the Arabs who don’t want competition.