Iraq: Breaking Up Is ... Easy To Visualize

Marc Lynch at abuaardvark reports on a map that has gone viral in Iraq.  (See: "Federalism is our path" - link.)

According to Lynch, the image in question was produced by SCIRI, the Shi'a organization, and is getting a boost by way of Shia members of parliament.  The main text is said to read:  "Federalism is our one path to freedom and security."  Notice also how the Sunni section is ominously darker and appears to have lost land mass across its south.

Roads to Iraq (via Abuardvark) points out a couple of other peculiarities.  Half of the Ramadi province (a Sunni stronghold) has been given over to the Shiite holy city of Karbala.  Also, the oil rich Kirkuk appears to have been moved out of Kurdistan and into the dark blue Sunni area.  (I guess that is the Shiite idea of throwing the Sunni's a bone -- at the Kurds expense.) 

Finally, I was interested in the rays extending toward the heavens from the clasped hands.  Because of the scale, the hands extending over the eastern border, and because it is anchored deep in the south, could the embrace here really be between Shiite Iraq and Iran?

(image: abuaardvark.com)