I thought Iraq was basically three ethnic/cultural groups. The Kurds in the North, the central region was mainly Sunni Arabs, and the South and East were mainly Shiite's who may also be of Persian descent?
Sure. Not sure how old this situation is: there's an enormous amount of migration in the ME in the last century or so.
For the modern history, part of the problem was that the Baath party, and the Iraqi state in general, was kinda a sunni-only thing. Afaik the british arranged it that way with King Faisal (II? I?).
