"Michael Rubin writes, after news of Kurdish journalists being arrested and harassed by the KDP: “Success in Iraqi Kurdistan could have been one of Bush’s greatest legacies. Unfortunately, it appears just one instance of how his administration has squandered its chances.” This has been one of the major myths of the Iraq War. The vision of a liberal Iraqi Kurdistan, free of the backwardness and religious fanaticism of Arab Iraq, was one many Western journalists loved to cover. Westerners could travel with relative ease in Iraqi Kurdistan, where the people are broadly pro-American, and where pervasive military and militia activity discourages “Arab” terrorism. This is a land where women are routinely burned alive, non-Kurds have their movement heavily watched and regulated, often by gangs of militiamen, Christian churches are violated and the identity of their patrons forcibly reconstructed from Semitic ones to “Kurdish” ones, and where political actors suffocate dissent by intimidation and force." (thanks Nouri)