Months before the US intended to leave Iraq, Sunni Arabs had been raising their complaints: unemployment, marginalisation and arbitrary arrests by the government.
Now the arrest warrant issued against Tariq al-Hashemi, the Sunni vice-president, is adding to Iraq's religious divisions.
The political crisis has prompted Sunni-dominated areas to call for their own autonomous region. However, the idea of a Sunni-dominated federal region is not welcome to Nouri al-Maliki's Shia-led government and many others.
Al Jazeera's Omar Al Saleh reports from Baghdad.
