Opposing agendas snarl Shiite, Kurd cooperation in Iraq

BAGHDAD – In the month since Iraqis rushed to the polls in support of democracy, getting anything done has proved a painstaking process of consensus-building that's now focused on two political groups whose interests are diametrically opposed.
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he Shiites are determined to use Islam as a legal cornerstone, something the staunchly secular Kurds reject. The Kurds say they will cooperate only with those who offer them control of oil-rich Kirkuk - a promise that Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Shiite choice for prime minister, has said the UIA will never make.

But the Kurds are showing little inclination, publicly at least, to compromise.
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Andres Arato, a constitutional expert at the New School University in New York, says Kurdish demands and the two-thirds vote required to approve the new government and permanent constitution may delay the constitution longer than anyone expected. In that event, the country will have to continue to use the TAL, which he says could be destabilizing over the long term. "The very high threshold means you [may] never have a government,"

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http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0228/p07s01-woiq.html