Tag Archives: KRG

A Sudden Churning

12 Thu Jun 2014

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On June 11, Middle East observers were stunned at the sudden breakthrough of militants belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) against Iraqi forces opposing them in Anbar and Nineveh. ISIS stormed through Mosul, Tikrit, and Baiji as the Iraqi army melted away so quickly that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki termed it a conspiracy. A report by the International Organization for Migration says an estimated 500,000 people, including 99% of its Christian population, have fled Mosul since hostilities began Saturday morning. The militants seized huge stores of American-supplied arms, ammunition and vehicles, including six Black Hawk helicopters and approximately $420 million in cash.

ISIS surgeAdmittedly, Mosul is not ISIS’ first scalp – they have captured and held Falluja since January 2014, put pressure on Ramadi and Samarra, and regularly target the Iraqi capital Baghdad with bombs. However, Mosul is Iraq’s third-largest city and an important hub of commercial activity; by way of comparison, Bangalore is India’s third-largest city. As such, its capture is symbolic and a huge morale boost for ISIS. It demonstrates a strong command and control and a high degree of internal coordination and cohesion within ISIS to be able to capture a city. Run by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has a doctorate in education from the University of Baghdad, ISIS is estimated to command some 6,000 fighters in Iraq and another 3,000 in Syria; the United States has placed a $10 million bounty on al-Baghdadi, surpassed only, so far, by the $25 million reward for al-Qa’ida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Equally worrisome is the disintegration of the Iraqi army. In many areas, soldiers doffed their uniforms and disappeared into the civilian population; in others, they were willing to lay down their arms without offering any resistance if they were guaranteed safe passage. Immediate blame may fall upon the failure of the United States to supply Iraq with weaponry in a timely manner or raise doubts about its training of Iraqi troops but the problem goes deeper than that – al-Maliki’ and his government was not able to build a state to which the average Iraqi felt much loyalty.

ISIS started out as al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI), a militant group that opposed the US occupation of Iraq. The group was decimated but not completely eliminated by the US during the 2007 surge. However, the incompetence of the Iraqi government and the civil war in Syria led to its resurrection in 2012. For example, al-Maliki purged Sunni Muslims from government posts; he also went back on his promise to integrate Sunni militias known as Sahwa into the regular army. It was these brigades that the US had used to fight and defeat AQI earlier. The release of al-Qa’ida prisoners by the United States also provided what Michael Knights, the Lafer Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, calls “an unprecedented infusion of skilled, networked terrorist manpower” into the region. The series of massive prison breaks across Iraq in 2013 also contributed to the swelling of ISIS ranks. Disturbingly, ISIS was expelled from the al-Qa’ida fraternity in February 2014 for unnecessarily killing civilians and being too vicious!

The collapse of the Iraq-Syria border will aid ISIS in its fight in Iraq as well as against Bashar al-Assad. They can take refuge from one side in the territory of the other and enjoy internal lines of communication. The civil war in Syria has improved the fighting capability of ISIS and as many US military observers are saying, this is no longer a terrorist threat but a small army on the move. ISIS is moving south against Baghdad, and the Shia holy cities of Karbala and Najaf may very well be next for the Sunni extremists. The group’s twitter account said it had taken Mosul as part of a plan “to conquer the entire state and cleanse it from the apostates.” The organisation’s goal, as it has often stated, is to re-establish the Islamic Caliphate from the Mediterranean to the Zagros under sharia law.

There have been reports that ISIS may extend its domain beyond Iraq and Syria into Jordan, but in all likelihood, the focus will be on consolidating the gains in Iraq and protecting the rear by gaining the upper hand against arch-rival Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria. Al-Nusra has pushed ISIS out of Aleppo and Idlib as well as the northern provinces in Syria and offered strong resistance in Deir Ezzor. Furthermore, Syrian forces are starting to attack ISIS strongholds in Raqqa and Hassakah.

In response to the ISIS surge, the Iraqi government has requested that the United States conduct air strikes against key militant positions across northern Iraq. Ironically, Washington sees the use of drones against ISIS as a step too far and has refused to act so far. In some ways, the United States is torn between supporting or standing idly by as ISIS fights Assad and acting against it in defence of its Iraqi client while incidentally helping the Syrian regime. However, events seem to have overtaken Washington and it will be forced to act. Ground troops are not an option for the US, but the fear of Iran increasing its footprint in Iraq will propel Washington to conduct airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq if not Syria.

The only group that is currently capable of fighting ISIS in the region is the Kurdish Regional Government and its brethren in Rojava. The peshmerga and the Yekineyen Parastina Gel (YPG) are also battle-hardened and fairly well-equipped after decades of fighting Iranians, Arabs, and Turks for Kurdish autonomy. Nonetheless, there is no love lost between Hewler and Baghdad. Kurdish forces have so far taken Kirkuk but made no move against ISIS yet. It remains to be seen whether they remain neutral or join the fight on the side of their nemesis, Baghdad. There is temptation in Hewler to sit on the sidelines but ISIS is unlikely to view Kurdistan favorably once it establishes its caliphate; the KRG would be making a grave mistake if it allowed ISIS to consolidate its power, or on the contrary, the militant threat is defeated and Hewler is seen as opportunistically neutral.

The march on Shia shrines and the brutal massacres of Shia in ISIS-held territory has evinced a response from Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The cleric has said that he is willing to raise the Mahdi Army he had disbanded in 2008 to provide for the security of Shia and Christians in Iraq. The obvious Shia power that has remained quiet so far is Iran. Though most officials have been silenced by a gag order from the top, Iran’s police chief Esmail Ahmadi Moghaddam revealed that the Supreme National Security Council intervene in Iraq if Shia were explicitly targeted.

Iran has been troubled by rising Sunni extremism in its neighbourhood; in August 1998, the Taliban stormed Mazar-e Sharif and massacred Shia pilgrims in neighbouring Afghanistan. According to the memoirs of former diplomat Hossein Mousavian, it was only the veto of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that stopped Iran from going to war. Iran is already involved in the Syrian conflagration in favour of Assad and this new ISIS threat in Iraq could be catastrophic. Said Ghassem Suleimani, leader of the Quds Force, Iran’s rage at the destruction of religious sites it holds dear would be enormous and all options would be on the table – “battles, attacks, raids, massacre.” The Quds Force, however, is thought to have been operating in Iraq in an unofficial capacity for a while now. At the time of writing, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has just announced that he would deploy the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to Iraq to fight the terrorists.

ISIS’ rapid success has made many enemies. Turkey had so far opposed the Assad regime and had turned a lazy eye towards foreign fighters streaming into Syria to fight the Syrian regime. Recent geopolitics, however, has made Ankara change its mind on Syria and the rebels. The storming of the Turkish consulate in Mosul and the taking some 80 Turkish citizens as hostages comes at an awkward time, domestically speaking, for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Reconnaissance flights over Mosul out of Diyarbakir have already been conducted in consultation with Baghdad and Ankara has issued a stern warning to ISIS over any harm befalling the Turkish hostages. Turkey is unlikely to conduct military operations against ISIS just yet unless ISIS kills the hostages, a very unlikely event. Ankara, however, will maintain its new policy of keeping its borders closed and make it more difficult for foreign fighters to drift in as before.

It is unlikely that ISIS will take on so many foes at once. However, if the group settles into a holding pattern, it may lose support of the people in the territory it controls. The massive exodus from Mosul is an indication that people have little faith in organisation’s governance abilities. ISIS has already made a powerful negative image for itself by persecuting minorities and brutally crushing even the slightest dissent in lands it has held. If ISIS slows down now, or if a loose and reluctant coalition of Turks, Iranians, Kurds, and US-supplied Iraqis manages to slow them down, they may be the reason of their own unravelling.

The phrase, “May you live in interesting times” is usually taken to be an ancient Chinese blessing. It is, in fact, neither ancient nor Chinese nor a blessing. It appears in the opening remarks of Frederic Coudert at the Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in 1939…and was meant as a curse. These are interesting times indeed.

Incidentally, Iraq is – was – India’s second-largest oil supplier.

This post appeared on Daily News & Analysis on June 13, 2014.

A Long Road To Normalisation

29 Fri Nov 2013

Posted by in Iran, Middle East, Nuclear

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News of the Interim Nuclear Agreement with Iran has created a flurry of activity across the world – Boeing is digging through its stores for upgrades to Iran’s antiquated fleet of passenger planes, Renault is gearing up for potential exports to Iran, India has woken up to an opportunity to increase its strategic clout in South Asia, Turkey’s banks are raring to manage Tehran’s financial transactions, and the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries has been put on alert for increased oil production from Iran. There are even murmurs about a New Silk Road. Yet on the military end, they is speculation about an Israel-Saudi alliance against Tehran.

Much of this is overly optimistic speculation and there will be little movement on most of these fronts over the first half of 2014 when the E3+3 and Iran will be busy trying to negotiate a permanent understanding on Iran’s nuclear programme. In fact, even a comprehensive solution to the Iranian nuclear question will hardly result in the tectonic shifts everyone envisions and certainly not with the speed everyone predicts. Iran’s return to the mainstream is likely to be slow and though its impact on the region could be significant, will proceed at a more moderated pace than suggested.

The most critical change, from Tehran’s perspective, must come in the oil sector. Oil will remain Iran’s bread and butter in the short term until other sectors of its economy can recover from the decades of sanctions. The Islamic Republic must be able to produce and sell as much oil as it pleases, and it must be able to conduct secure financial transactions to receive payment for its mineral resource. However, it is not so easy to ramp up oil production, and Iran’s decrepit oil machinery and infrastructure cannot handle any sudden increase. Iran desperately needs help to build new oil rigs and upgrade or repair old ones before it can sustain a high output of oil.

Tehran is not looking East

Tehran’s gas pipeline east faces other hurdles – historical differences between India and Pakistan act as a dampener on Indian enthusiasm for the project, and though the pipeline may still go ahead between Iran and Pakistan, the real prize is India’s burgeoning economy and its insatiable hunger for energy. Projections for that economic boom must wait until India and Pakistan come to an understanding or the security of the pipeline and India’s energy source is assured.

India has also refused to move quickly on developing Chabahar for fear of having its companies sanctioned by the United States and the European Union. Even if the removal of sanctions would push Delhi to finally begin moving quickly on Chabahar, the expansion of the port and connecting it by railway, road, and pipeline – at least to Afghanistan if not Central Asia – will take a few years. In addition, such plans will undoubtedly meet with resistance from several neighbours – Pakistan would view Indian influence so close to its western border with concern; if the Central Asian republics could be persuaded to participate in connecting their oil & gas reserves to Chabahar as well as to China, Russia would resent its waning influence over the former Soviet republics. Furthermore, any pipeline, road, or railway heading north from Chabahar will be in some of the most militant-rich terrain in the world.

Another factor that could slow Iran’s recovery is that a lot of Tehran’s money is trapped in rupee deposits in India, renminbis in China, and other less desirable currencies. This is because the US-EU sanctions cut Iran off from the international financial system completely – even accessing one’s US bank account online from Iran would lead to its suspension until one personally went into a US branch again. The non-convertibility of many of the currencies Iran holds forces them to buy from the specific countries, hindering Tehran’s ability to purchase necessary goods freely. As one business man complained, “How much basmati can we buy?” The sudden depreciation of the rupee has also lost Iran about 12% of its oil earnings from India. Iran’s warmth towards its eastern allies is born out of economic necessity than any ideological or other concurrence of views. As an Iranian engineer said of his Chinese partners, “I think the sanctions gave them the ability to act however they wanted with us.” Indeed, with allies like these, who needs enemies?

The United States probably hopes that the thawing of relations with Iran will help its retreat from Afghanistan. This could be achieved sooner than most other goals. It is well within Iran’s capability to make the Western extraction difficult, and most importantly for the United States, Pakistan will no longer have NATO at its mercy. However, it is hard to predict the ramifications upon Pakistan of the loss of its pivotal role in US operations in Central Asia. With anti-American sentiment strong in the population and the increasing power of Islamists, not to mention the questionable safety of its nuclear arsenal, Pakistan may even take a turn for the worse without a US presence in the region. Tehran does not favour a US presence in the neighbourhood, but an Afghanistan and Pakistan out of a Wild, Wild West scenario must keep the clerics up at night.

The Neighbourhood

Within the Middle East, many hope that resolving the Iranian issue is a first step to ending the civil war in Syria and perhaps gaining some control over the Hezbollah in the Occupied Territories in Israel. These fantasies are also unlikely to pan out as beautifully as they are imagined. If Tehran abandoned Bashar al-Assad to the Gulf-funded Salafi jihadists and their Western patrons, not only will it undermine confidence in Iran’s support in the region but also create a hostile state on the Islamic Republic’s doorstep. Tehran’s cooperation on the Syrian bloodbath will hardly result in the ideal outcome the West desires and the issue of a future Syrian state and Assad may become yet another splinter between the United States and the Gulf states.

Next door to Iran, the Kurdish Regional Government has been developing ties with Turkey and establishing its own international credentials in matters involving the Kurds in Syria, international investment in the Kurdish autonomous province, and oil trade. An Iran that is not an international pariah will open doors to Hewlêr’s diversification of its trade and allow its energy resources access to the Persian Gulf as well as the presently planned route to the Mediterranean via Turkey. The KRG will hardly rush with the large investments needed in infrastructure for the pipelines; Hewlêr will want to be convinced of the viability of trade with Iran and that the clerics will keep their word on nuclear safeguards.

The Israeli Connection

An interesting development has been the much mentioned Israeli-Saudi alliance against Iran. If the United States achieves a rapprochement with Iran, many observers believe that it will be over Israeli and Saudi concerns and this would push the two governments into an unlikely partnership. This is an extremely simplistic, if not naïve, view of geopolitics. For one, Israel and Saudi Arabia are still are still locked in mortal combat over desired outcomes in Syria and Palestine, and there are several symbolic as well as strategic reasons Riyadh and Jerusalem will not drift too close. At best, they might temporarily walk in the same direction and, perhaps, tangle their little fingers. It will be impossible to whitewash over the rhetoric of Jewish/Zionist-Islamic divide that has been so carefully cultivated since 1948 any time soon.

Considering the Israel-Iran stand-off, Trita Parsi has convincingly argued in Treacherous Alliance that both Israel and Iran are shrewd and pragmatic political operators who have not let ideology interfere with their national interests; Israel supplied Iran with weapons during the Iran-Iraq War despite the anti-Israel tirade from the imams in Qom. In fact, many of Iran’s security and policy goals show a continuity, not a break, with Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s regime. If Israel can be persuaded of the effectiveness of the nuclear safeguards on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure – without which there would be no deal in the first place – its strategists have always argued for what they called a Periphery Doctrine. Essentially, this doctrine argued that as non-Arab states – two and a half of them are even democracies – Iran, Turkey, and Israel act as natural bulwarks against their mutual rivals. Turkey’s place in that club has become murky with the failure of Ankara’s recent Zero Problem foreign policy initiative, but there is little reason for eternal enmity between Tehran and Jerusalem.

Shia Living in a Sunni World

Perhaps counter-intuitively, international normalisation of ties with Iran causes more problems for Saudi Arabia than Israel. Iran’s increased influence in the region could easily translate to Tehran emerging as a lightening rod for the disaffected Shia minority from Pakistan to Bahrain, Yemen, Lebanon, Egypt and even the Kingdom itself. The fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the increasing political presence of Iraq’s Shia population has given Iran some breathing space in its neighbourhood. If pilgrimage numbers are anything to judge potential political ties by, Najaf has seen more visitors annually since 2009 than either Mecca or Medina.

Recent media reports suggest that ties between Iran and Turkey have been getting warmer and that the two countries are even sharing intelligence on matters of mutual concern. However, though both have shared concerns about Kurdish nationalism in the past, the major question mark in the near future is Syria. Ankara has been lukewarm in its support of the rebels against Assad since any semblance of a secular opposition gave way to Salafists, but neither is it likely to be comfortable with yet another neighbour within Iran’s sphere of influence. Ankara’s failure in Egypt and Syria may make it more open to Iranian overtures, but that remains to be seen.

A Slow Normalisation on the Cards

Iran’s leaders have posited their nation to be a golden key that could open up the entire Middle East. That honour, in my opinion, will go to an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. Iran today presents a problem for the West, no doubt, and settling the nuclear issue will bring relief to both sides. Yet over three decades of demonising, scheming, and aiding hostile proxies will hardly go away in a few months. To put things in an Indian perspective, friendly Iran-US relations within the decade would be like expecting India and Pakistan to overcome their historical mistrust and hatred overnight just because Islamabad decided to extradite terrorists India has been demanding. Resentment between the United States and Iran has gone deeper than the political and seeped into public opinion as well, albeit many hope that relations will improve. A rapid turnabout of 370 million minds is no easy task, but that is why we read Lao Tzu.

A New Dawn Over Kurdistan?

01 Mon Jul 2013

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In the ebb and flow of History, Kurdish fortunes seem to have risen yet again. After being persecuted by their neighbours for centuries, after their betrayal at Lausanne, and after the horrors of Halabja, their hope for an independent Kurdistan, unthinkable even a decade ago, is closer to fruition than ever before.

kurdistanThe Kurdish people are spread over an area approximately the size of Japan across modern-day Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. An indigenous ethnic group, they speak Kurdish, an Indo-Iranian language. It is been debated whether there ever existed a Kurdistan in ancient times, but the closest it has come to recognition in modern times is when Iraqi Kurdistan was granted autonomy in 1970; its status was reconfirmed by the new Iraqi government in 2005.

The defeat of Saddam Hussein’s forces and the collapse of the Iraqi totalitarian state in 2003 took the cork out of the bottle of sectarian violence in Iraq; Iraq was divided along Sunni and Shia lines, adding to the already tense Shia-Sunni stand-off between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Arab weakness caused by sectarian differences increased relative Kurdish strength in the country, allowing it significant leeway in shaping post-war Iraq. In addition, the governments in Ankara, Damascus, and Tehran saw an autonomous Kurdistan as a tool by which to enervate the other traditional regional strongman, Baghdad.

The new Kurdish autonomous region has already taken up the task of forming a distinctive identity with gusto. If theories of nationalism are to believed, language and print are key ingredients in shaping a national identity; the Kurdish government has insisted on Kurdish being recognised alongside Arabic as a national language in the Iraqi constitution, and made it the default medium of education across schools and colleges in the Kurdish zone. In conjunction, Kurdish media has also experienced a boom in print, radio, as well as television.

Besides its own media, the Kurdish province also has its own flag and more importantly, its own regular militia. The peshmerga, Kurdish guerilla fighters, have been transformed into a proper conventional army with an appropriate organisational hierarchy, uniform, and salary.

This new-found identity and assertiveness has been received with varying enthusiasm from its neighbours, and some have changed their minds since the early days of Kurdish autonomy. It is not clear if Kurdistan will become an independent country in the near future, but it has already overcome some odds previously thought to be unsurmountable and has become an oasis of stability in a chaotic part of the world. Iran, Syria, and Turkey are keeping a close eye on not only the autonomous province in Iraq but also their own Kurds in an era of great change in the Middle East.

Kurdistan and Iraq

Iraqi Kurdistan has the lowest poverty rates in the country. Its relative distance from the violence engulfing the rest of Iraq has allowed the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) to focus more on development and as of 2004, the per capita income in the province was 25% higher than in the rest of Iraq. This has attracted many workers from the rest of Iraq to the little Kurdish oasis of peace. Iraqi Kurdistan is also blessed with the sixth largest oil reserves in the world, as well as significant quantities of coal, copper, gold, iron, limestone, marble, rock sulphur, and zinc.

The KRG has had increasingly acrimonious disagreements with the Iraqi central government. Baghdad resents the increasing autonomy and wealth the KRG is enjoying, while the Kurds are tired of their wealth being expropriated by rulers in Baghdad without investing in the development of Kurdish areas or people. Baghdad is also resentful of the KRG’s independent Department of Foreign Affairs which reduces Iraq’s control over its wayward province even more. In addition, the Iraqi central government is certainly not pleased with the KRG’s publicity campaign – The Other Iraq – to attract investors, highlighting the stability and security of the province.

Tensions between Hewlêr and Baghdad came to a head in 2011 over disputed territory between the two. The KRG claims the oil-rich regions of Mosul and Kirkuk, which Baghdad has steadfastly denied. In 2012, the Iraqi government ordered the KRG to transfer control of the peshmerga to Baghdad or face the consequences of attempted secession. Hewlêr refused, and clashes between Iraqi forces and the peshmerga in November that year left ten wounded and two dead.

Hewlêr was also incensed when Turkey and Iran shelled Iraqi Kurdistan in 2008 and 2010 respectively and Baghdad did little to defend Iraqi territory. Turkey was taking military action against the Parti Karkerani Kurdistan (PKK) and Iran against the Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistanê (PJAK), the former listed as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations, Europe, and the United States, and the latter an offshoot of the former. Baghdad intended to de-fang the KRG via Tehran and Ankara, but operations lasted only a few days and the KRG saw the incidents as only further evidence of their second-class status in Iraq.

Kurdistan and Turkey

With Akhand Kurdistan claiming up to 40% of Anatolia, Turkey would be the last country anyone would expect to be warming up to the KRG. The success of the Kurds in putting their house in order should have been more cause for worry to Ankara since a viable Kurdish state was appearing on their border – who was to say it would not light the passion of Kurds in Turkey for similar greater autonomy? In days past, Iraq’s territorial integrity was of vital importance to Turkey, but with shifting political winds, Ankara’s thoughts may have changed.

Oil, as everyone knows, is a great aphrodisiac among nations; in the Iraqi case, it is an important factor in both the cohesiveness and fissiparity of the country. The KRG’s increasing autonomy in a region richly blessed with oil has not passed unnoticed by national capitals or corporate leaders worldwide. Oil multinationals have been setting up shop in Iraqi Kurdistan even in areas disputed between Hewlêr and Baghdad. Turkey has even opened a consulate in the capital city of the Kurdish region and trade between the KRG and Ankara was said to touch $9 billion by 2009.

As of 2012, over a thousand Turkish companies operated in Iraqi Kurdistan, alongside American, Russian, French, Chinese, and others. Kurdish relations with these multinationals provides a measure of security in case violence were to break out in Iraq; foreign interests, particularly regional and superpower ones, could well dissuade Arab Iraq from pursuing any civil war too aggressively into Kurdistan.

Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan need each other; for the former, the oil and gas the latter sells not only increases the diversity of sources but is also cheaper than Russian or Iranian energy, and for the latter, Turkey is the easiest conduit to the Mediterranean and the international market. However, Ankara’s hunger for energy could have destabilising effects on the region: if Turkey still believes a united Iraq is in its (and the region’s) better interests, it must be careful that the KRG’s energy revenues do not encourage it down a path towards independence. Ankara has already signed deals (for one gas and two oil pipelines) with Hewlêr directly rather than go through Baghdad, and rumours abound that the income distribution arrangement between the two Iraqi cities is not being kept meticulously by either side. Furthermore, Turkey must consider that while a weak Baghdad seemed a rational strategic goal in the past, a stronger Iran, particularly a nuclear one, may demand a resurrection of Iraqi power.

Kurdistan and Iran

Like in every other country in the region with a significant Kurdish minority, Kurds in Iran have a long history of oppression. However, Tehran has warmed up to Iraqi Kurdistan in recent times, call for improved ties with the KRG and greater economic cooperation, particularly in agriculture and power. Trade between Iran and the autonomous province of Iraqi Kurdistan has already hit $8 billion.

While Hewlêr is concerned about Iranian shelling of a few of its border towns, it is also aware that there is little it can do on its own and help from Baghdad is unimaginable. Furthermore, with Kurdistan’s future with Iraq and Turkey uncertain, it would be unwise for Hewlêr to spurn any opportunities for friendship with Tehran. Iraqi Kurdistan also needs Iranian expertise in developing its mineral wealth: there are already over 500 Iranian companies in the province and the KRG is doing its best to attract more Iranian technicians to train its people and build its infrastructure.

Tehran, on the other hand, may feel more comfortable with a Shia-dominated Iraq on its border but needs Kurdistan as well for trade in an era of sanctions. A friendly yet weaker neighbour would also be less likely to allow its soil to be used as a staging ground for state or non-state anti-Iran forces. Furthermore, in the old cultural animosity between Persians and their Arab neighbours, Kurds, who have as much reason to resent Arabs, might be useful allies.

Kurdistan and the Syrian Conflict

While oil and the Kurds’ neighbours are reasonably predictable, the civil war in Syria has become a complete wildcard. Turkey’s traditionally strong relations with its southern neighbour have snapped and in retaliation, Damascus has given Syrian Kurds a free hand to establish themselves in the north by the border with Turkey. Syrian Kurds, affiliated with a PKK offshoot known as the Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat (PYD), have mostly remained out of the conflict but are equally wary of Ankara’s close ties to the Syrian opposition which consists of several Sunni Islamist factions.

Some Syrian Kurds have voiced a desire for autonomy after the war, like their brethren enjoy in Iraq, while others have called for outright independence. With a unified and centralised Syria seeming more impossible with each passing day, Turkey hopes that its close relations with the KRG will be of some help when it comes time to negotiate with the PYD. If Syria’s Kurds manage to break away, there emerges the question of whether they would consider merging with an independent Iraqi Kurdistan, a perturbing prospect for all of Kurdistan’s neighbours. In the past, Turkey has threatened military action in such a scenario, but Ankara’s relations with the Kurds has changed dramatically in the past few years.

The Parti Karkerani Kurdistan

Ankara’s recently struck peace with the PKK can in many ways be seen as the first blow of the next potential conflict in the Middle East. After months of secret negotiations (probably assisted by KRG officials behind the scenes), Recep Tayyip Erdoğan struck a peace deal with imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan. Under the publicly known stipulations of this agreement, the PKK will leave Anatolia to return to their bases in Iraqi Kurdistan. Öcalan has also explicitly abandoned the idea of an autonomous or independent Kurdish state being carved out of Turkey.

The PKK’s return to Iraq has been condemned by Syria, Iran and Baghdad, each worried that the returning numbers would swell the ranks and consolidate the energies of the respective Kurdish factions arrayed against them, the PJAK in Iran, the PYD in Syria, and the KRG militia in Iraq. In fact, Turkish intelligence has claimed that Iran has offered the PKK more supplies if they remained in Turkey.

The KRG, for its part, has demanded the utmost loyalty of the PKK to the Kurdish government and is keeping close tabs on the group’s activities. The peace deal with Turkey did not stipulate that the PKK disarm, and an armed and experienced militia outside the control of the KRG would pose a threat to its stability. Furthermore, Hewlêr is concerned that a trigger-happy PKK might create problems for its diplomacy with Iran and Turkey and demonstrate to the world that the KRG is not in control of its own region. Such spasmodic violence can undermine the entire Kurdish project by scaring away much-needed international good will and investors.

Kurdistan vs. Kurdistan

A Kurd’s greatest enemy is another Kurd. Despite their common oppression, the Kurds have maintained innumerable factions that fight against each other. Outside powers have frequently exploited this to the incalculable detriment of the Kurds, and even today, the situation is hardly different. Despite an institutional set-up in Hewlêr, there is worry in some corners that Kurdish politics is, as it has always been, tribal and personal.

For example, Turkey has developed relations with the Partîya Demokrata Kurdistan (PDK) led by the Massoud Barzani, while Iran enjoys closer ties to the PDK’s coalition partner, the Yeketî Niştîmanî Kurdistan, also known as the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Jalal Talabani. This arrangement appears to leave the KRG’s entire foreign policy to the mercy of electoral calculations and personal outcomes – if the PUK were to become a more valuable member of the same coalition in the next election, Iraqi Kurdistan could be humming a Persian tune. Such vicissitudes are not uncommon in other countries either, but few exhibit drastic differences in their world views as exist between the PDK and the PUK, despite their rhetoric. The Kurdish Opposition, the Gorran Movement headed by Nawshirwan Mustafa, is a new and relatively unknown political force, though most of its members were formerly of the PUK.

The Relationship That Dare Not Speak Its Name – Kurdistan and Israel

Kurdistan’s one relationship that is at once profitable and a liability is the one with Israel. The Jewish state has supported Kurds for a long time, the persecuted ethnic group an ulcer for the Arab enemies. Israeli support for the Kurdish cause dried up very quickly due to logistical reasons after the Shah of Ira, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, signed the Algiers Agreement in 1975 that denied Israel Iranian staging grounds for running supplies to Iraqi Kurds. Since then, Israeli ties to the Kurds has remained small and in the shadows.

The state of Israel’s relations with its Arab neighbours is no secret. As Turkey turned away from Europe and towards the Middle East in recent years, particularly after the MV Mavi Marmara incident in 2010, its relations with Israel have become strained as well. In the midst of this hostility, Kurdish relations with Israel would set off alarm bells in every regional capital and may even bring to bear economic and military pressure upon Hewlêr. Given the sheer volume of Turkish and Iranian investments into the Kurdish economy, the KRG would be unwise to presently pursue closer ties with Israel and antagonise the neighbours.

That said, there is ample support for Israel among the people. In a recent University of Kurdistan debate held in Hewlêr, students argued strenuously for ties with Jerusalem. Kurdish independence would please Jerusalem very much too, giving them the opportunity to cultivate an ally in the heart of hostile territory. As with many other states sensitive to religious grand-standing, Israel maintains low-profile assistance to the KRG, military as well as economic.

What Does The Future Hold?

The Kurdish autonomous region may not be ready for independence in the immediate future, its weak military and urgent need for economic development delaying any thoughts of breaking away from Iraq. Nevertheless, as its economic strength grows and it achieves basic infrastructural goals for its people, more and more Kurds will question the utility of staying within an Arab Iraq.

There are hints that the KRG is deeply concerned about its military weakness vis-a-vis its neighbours. During a recent visit to Washington, it is rumoured that Barzani sought security guarantees for the Kurdish region but was rebuffed by the Obama administration. There is no doubt that the Kurds have proven to be the West’s most reliable ally in the region, but the United States has until recently not encouraged Kurdish separatism out of deference to fellow NATO member Turkey’s wishes. However, with Ankara singing a different tune and Syria collapsing to Islamists, the next President might see the value of an independent Kurdistan.

As regional alliances shift to balance the realities of the new Middle East, Kurdistan may have its best opportunity for independence since Sèvres. If the KRG wishes to take it, they must focus on developing their economy further and reassuring at least some of their neighbours that they have no irredentist ambitions. Building up the military will be tricky as an autonomous province and will warn everyone of the potential bid for independence. Yet Iraq and Turkey, who have already had a taste of battle with the peshmerga, already know that the Kurds can be a formidable enemy even without international support or a fully-fledged conventional army.

Most importantly for the Kurds, as has always been the case in their history, can the different factions – PKK, PYD, PJAK, PDK, PUK, Gorran Movement, and others – get along with each other to make an independent state a worthwhile venture?