Tomgram: Peter Galbraith, The War Is Lost

The week in Iraq began with a particularly brutal triple bombing in the oil-rich, disputed city of Kirkuk -- a truck bomb took out part of the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, and subsequent car bombs hit a nearby market and a police patrol, with over 80 dead and more than 180 wounded. These were reminders, undoubtedly from Sunni extremists (possibly driven north by President Bush's surge offensive around Baghdad), that the only relatively peaceful, economically prospering region of "Iraq" -- Iraqi Kurdistan -- may not remain that way forever. Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen are already struggling over who is to inherit the oil-spoils of Kirkuk, which many Kurds would like to annex and turn into the capital of what they dream may someday be an independent country. Kirkuk's fate is supposedly to be decided by a referendum at year's end.