While the political infighting and violence that have afflicted Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 are by no means over, the Shia-dominated government has been able to channel them for its own purposes. Baghdad has accomplished this largely by pitting Iraq's two smaller ethno-sectarian groups — the Sunnis and the Kurds — against each other. As the post-Saddam government was forming in Iraq in 2003 and for several years thereafter, the Shia aligned with the Kurds to ensure that the Sunnis, who had previously dominated the country, were effectively cut out of the political process. However, the Sunnis and Shia both had an interest in preventing the Kurds from expanding beyond the borders of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government in the north. After the Sunnis were brought into the system in 2007 and 2008, the dispute between Baghdad and the Kurdish government in Arbil over the central government's insistence that energy development in Iraqi Kurdistan be done under Baghdad's supervision and control became more prominent. To push back against Kurdish demands, the administration of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki aligned with the Sunnis, who were even less enthusiastic about Kurdish autonomy and who had a territorial dispute with the Kurds in northern Iraq, especially surrounding the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Since 2009, the Kurds and the Sunnis have become more assertive in challenging the Shia-dominated government. Indeed, after the 2010 elections, the Sunnis sought and failed to form a coalition with the Kurds and even the al-Sadrite Shiite faction against al-Maliki and his Shiite allies. These divisions have since worsened, and tensions with the Kurds have increased, particularly regarding security responsibility in the disputed areas around Kirkuk.
