An excellent article on the region from The Economist -- reprinted in full because it's only available on the website by subscription.

ARBIL
From The Economist print edition

JEALOUS neighbours—Arab, Persian and Turk—used to be able to sow discord among Iraq's fractious Kurds, seemingly at will. No longer: a new unity prevails. Since last autumn, when their regional parliament held its first full session in eight years, the two main Kurdish groups, the PUK and the KDP, have shown surprising pragmatism. Jalal Talabani, the PUK's leader, says that the two groups are even talking about unifying their administrations, and setting up a combined military command. With the prize of self-determination at last within their grasp, Mr Talabani and his former foe, the KDP's Massoud Barzani, have come together in their longing for a war of “liberation”.

Kurdish officials parrot some of the wilder statements of the American administration. Barham Salih, Mr Talabani's “prime minister”, laments that the UN is becoming an “irrelevance”, and repeats the improbable charge that Ansar al-Islam, a band of Kurdish Islamist assassins, has produced chemical weapons. Officials obligingly identify the Ansar's unlikely pairing of non-executive directors: Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

Kurdish unity is good for Kurds, but too much of it worries the non-Kurdish groups that America has designated, along with the KDP and the PUK, to be Iraq's visible opposition. In the run-up to a long-delayed conference of opposition parties, scheduled to start outside Arbil some time this week, some of the participants privately doubted whether the Kurds would join the other groups in strenuously opposing the American plan to entrust the running of Iraq to an American military governor. The Kurds, or so the others fear, will fight hard for a federal structure and for control over their internal affairs, but may give way on American proposals for a deliberately sluggish transition to democracy.

The groups that claim to represent Iraq's Shia Muslim majority are particularly perturbed by the prospect of an American military governorate that may incorporate former Baath party elements. Officials from the biggest of these groups, the Iran-based Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, pronounce themselves aghast. This may well reflect the apprehension of their paymasters in Tehran, who shudder at the thought of living next door to an American administration.

The Americans, concerned with finalising their military plans, are far less interested than the opposition parties are in drawing up a blueprint for postwar Iraq. This week, American, Kurdish and Turkish soldiers met on the border between Turkey and Iraq, no doubt to talk about the military intervention into northern Iraq that the Turks are insisting they will carry out in the event of war. Besides stemming an expected flood of refugees into Turkey, these troops will act as a reminder to Iraq's Kurds, whose current autonomy is eyed enviously by Turkish Kurds, not to grab more territory or privilege.

The opposition conference is considered something of a distraction by the Americans, as they bargain with Turkey over the price Turkey is exacting for an American military thrust into northern Iraq. Zalmay Khalilzad, Mr Bush's envoy, is determined not to let the groups draw up the “leadership structure” that they say they want in place by the time the war starts. And since Turkish observers will be on hand at the conference, the Kurds will be on their best behaviour.

Moreover, unless Mr Hussein mounts a pre-emptive strike against the KDP or the PUK, the Kurdish warriors have been ordered by America to stay put in any coming war. This may go against the grain for a martial race, but it represents a victory for the new Kurdish pragmatism.