Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ‘s dispute with Iraq’s Kurdish minority over its independent oil exports has escalated with the central government blocking Kurdistan’s share of the state budget and banning two airlines that operate between Europe and the Kurds’ semiautonomous northern enclave. Kurdistan’s president, Massoud Barzani , warned Maliki that his actions are “a declaration of war against the people of Kurdistan.” The simmering feud between the autocratically inclined Maliki and the independence-minded Kurds seems set to escalate sharply. But Maliki is facing a potentially explosive parliamentary election on April 30, the first since U.S. military forces withdrew in December 2011. He hopes it will bring him a third term as premier, while battling a widening insurgency by the minority Sunnis and al-Qaida that many in Baghdad fear will eventually spread to Iraq’s all-important oil industry, which is largely in the Shiite-controlled south. Some […]