فورين بوليسي : إقليم كردستان العراق هل كان مستعداً لقيام دولة ؟
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نشرت ( فورين بوليسي ) مقالاً مطولاً حول ما جرى في اقليم كردستان العراق وإستشراف مستقبله في ظل التطورات الراهنه ، جاء في مستهله إن ” الحرب ضد
” داعش ” أخفت مواطن ضعف الأكراد السياسيه والإقتصاديه ، لكن خسارة كركوك جعلت من المستحيل تجاهلها ” .
وأشارت كاتبة المقال الباحثه الأميركيه دينيس ناتالي ، الى أن “الاستفتاء الذي جرى في كردستان العراق في أيلول (سبتمبر) الماضي زاد وضع الأكراد السيئ أصلاً سوءاً ، فهو بدلاً من أن يعزز المكانة السياسية والحكم الذاتي للأكراد، بدد النوايا الطيبة الدولية تجاههم، واستعدى بغداد وجيرانها ، وعمق المخاطر الاقتصادية والانقسامات المجتمعية في الإقليم. كما أفضى إلى خسارة السيطرة على أراضٍ وموارد مهمه . وقد أعادت القوات الأمنية العراقية بسط سلطتها على كركوك وأصولها النفطية، وعلى “مناطق متنازع عليها” ونقاط العبور الحدودية العراقية بعد انسحاب متفاوض عليه لقوات البشمركه الكرديه ” .
ونوهت الى أن ” حكومة إقليم كردستان تجد نفسها الان محاصرة سياسياً واقتصادياً . وعلى الرغم من أن هذه الحكومة عرضت ” تجميد ” نتائج الاستفتاء نتيجة للانهيار السياسي ومن أجل استباق تقدم القوات العراقية إلى داخل الأراضي الخاضعة للسيطرة الكردية، طالبت الحكومة العراقية بإلغاء كامل لنتائج الاستفتاء، مع أن كلا الجانبين منخرطان في مفاوضات . ويهدد الانهيار الناجم عن الاستفتاء بإعادة تنظيم السياسة الداخلية لحكومة إقليم كردستان، حيث أعلن الرئيس مسعود برزاني نيته التنحي من منصبه يوم الأول من تشرين الثاني (نوفمبر)”.
واستدرك مقال المجلة الأميركية الشهيرة “لكن الاستفتاء كان عامل تحفيز أكثر من كونه مسببا للأزمة الراهنة التي تعيشها حكومة إقليم كردستان. وكانت هذه الحكومة قد روجت سرداً عن أن المنطقة هي ديمقراطية علمانية تنعم باقتصاد مزدهر وتتوافر على قوة عسكرية متماسكة -لكن المنطقة التي لا تطل على أي مياه كانت في واقع الأمر غير مستقرة اقتصادياً، وضعيفة مؤسساتياً ومنقسمة سياسياً منذ وقت طويل”.
كان الخطأ الأول الذي ارتكبته قيادة حكومة إقليم كردستان هو التركيز بكثافة على تجميع الدعم الدولي لمشروعها الطموح لبناء دولة، بحسب الباحثة الأميركية، بدلاً من محاولة إقناع العراقيين به . وبدلاً من جذب غير الأكراد إلى داخل أراضي ” كردستانها ” كمواطنين على قدم المساواة ، ميزت حكومة إقليم كردستان ضدهم ” .
ونبهت الكاتبة “خلال زيارة قمتُ بها إلى شمال العراق قبل أيام من إجراء استفتاء الاستقلال، قال لي رجل أعمال كيف أنه “حتى في الأعمال التجارية نحن غير متساوين”. واشتكى من الضرائب الإضافية التي كان عليه دفعها لنقل السلع في داخل منطقة كردستان. كما كان رد فعل الأشوريين غاضباً على قيام الحزب الديمقراطي الكردستاني الحاكم بمصادرة أراضٍ وباستبدال الحزب قادتهم المحليين بمسؤولي الحزب، في عملية يقولون إنها تهدف إلى “محوهم” من سهول نينوى. كما يشعر الكثير من الأيزيديين بالاستياء من تخلي الحزب الديمقراطي الكردستاني عنهم وتسليمهم لتنظيم “داعش” في العام 2014″.
وبسبب لذلك، كان العراقيون من غير الأكراد معارضين بأغلبية ساحقة لقيام دولة كردية، وخاصة دولة تضم محافظة كركوك الغنية بالنفط، كما تقول دينيس ناتالي، مستشهدة بقول زعيم عربي عشائري بارز قبل أيام من إجراء الاستفتاء “إن خمسة في المائة فقط من العرب في كركوك يقبلون بهيمنة حكومة إقليم كردستان على المنطقة. وقال لي قائد عربي آخر صراحة إنه لن يعتبر نتيجة الاستفتاء مشروعة أبداً. وقال: “لم ينته الأمر.. سوف نستعيد كركوك ” .
وأردفت “حتى لو لم يحرك استفتاء الاستقلال المعارضة المحلية والإقليمية، فإن غياب عوائد كافية لحكومة إقليم كردستان وهيكل قيادة عسكرية موحد كان ليقوض قدرتها على الاحتفاظ بالأراضي التي كسبتها خلال الحرب ضد “داعش” وتأمينها. (فقد توسعت أراضي حكومة إقليم كردستان بواقع 40 في المائة خلال الحملة العسكرية). وكانت التنمية الاقتصادية السريعة التي شهدتها المنطقة من العام 2008 وحتى العام 2012 قد تلقت التمويل في الجزء الأكبر من ثروة العراق النفطية، وليس من اقتصاد كردي مديم لذاته. وكان قرار حكومة إقليم كردستان في العام 2014 الالتفاف على بغداد بمبيعات نفطية “مستقلة”، بالإضافة إلى هبوط أسعار النفط وتكاليف الحملة العسكرية ضد “داعش”، قد فاقمت هشاشتها الاقتصادية. ومع أن حكومة إقليم كردستان خفضت الإنفاق ورفعت الضرائب، فإنها فشلت في التأقلم بفعالية مع مشاكلها المالية والسياسية ” .
وأشارة الماتبة في المجلة الشهيرة الى أنه “وخلال ذلك، عولت الانتصارات العسكرية الكردية بشكل كبير على الدعم الخارجي – تحديداً قوة طيران الائتلاف – وليس على القوة المؤسساتية الخاصة لحكومة إقليم كردستان . وكانت السيطرة على القوات الأمنية التابعة لحكومة إقليم كردستان ، بما فيها قوات البشمركة، مقسمة منذ وقت طويل بين الحزبين السياسيين الرئيسيين في المحافظات الثلاث التي تشكل المنطقه ” .
هذه الانقسامات كما كتبت الباحثة ناتالي ” باتت واضحة بعد الاستفتاء ، عندما فاوض بعض القادة من الحزب الوطني الكردستاني ، الحزب الكردي الرئيسي الآخر ، على صفقة مع بغداد وقام بسحب قوات البشمركة من كركوك من دون إبلاغ المسؤولين في حكومة إقليم كردستان أو الآخرين في الاتحاد الوطني الكردستاني . كما يفسر ذلك لماذا تتهم الفصائل المختلفة بعضها بعضا الآن بالخيانة و” بيع كركوك ” .
وتابعت أن ” الخسارة المشهودة لكركوك ، مع حقولها النفطية وأصولها وحقول أصغر في محافظة نينوى ، تهدد الآن بتعميق المأزق المالي لحكومة إقليم كردستان . وقد خفضت هذا الخسارات إنتاج وصادرات النفط حتى الآن من حوالي 600 الف إلى 280 ألف برميل في اليوم ، آخذة معها حوالي 55 في المائة من عوائد تصدير النفط لحكومة إقليم كردستان . كما أنها تتزامن مع تراجع فرص قطاع الطاقة لدى حكومة الإقليم . وقد هبط سعر النفط بقوة ، وانسحبت شركات النفط الدولية من 19 مجمع استكشاف في داخل المنطقة منذ العام 2014″ .
وخلصت الى أن ” هذا الانهيار المالي أنهى بذلك أي أمل كان لدى الأكراد ببناء اقتصاد حكم ذاتي مديم للذات ، ومنفصل عن بغداد . وسوف تجعل هذه الظروف الصعبة من الأوضاع أكثر صعوبة على حكومة إقليم كردستان أن تدفع رواتب موظفيها – التي لم تدفع بالكامل في عامين – ودينها الذي يفوق 20 مليار دولار، وتكاليف تشغيل شركات النفط الدولية والمتاجرين بالنفط . وقد تستمر صفقات الطاقة التي وقعتها حكومة إقليم كردستان مع تركيا وشركة النفط الروسية ” روزنفت ” -لكن من المرجح أن يأتي هؤلاء المستثمرون الأجانب ، خاصة بعد الاستفتاء ، على حساب السيطرة الكردية على سوق الطاقة وآليات التسعير . ومن شأن إغلاق بغداد للمجال الجوي الدولي في منطقة كردستان وإلغاء بعض الرحلات الإقليمية والتهديد بإغلاق الحدود من تركيا وإيران – إذا استمرت – أن تضيف إلى المستنقع الاقتصادي وحسب ” .
ولفتت ” كما يواجه القادة الأكراد على نحو متزايد ضغوطاً لتنفيذ إصلاحات سياسيه أيضاً . ويهيمن الحزب الديمقراطي الكردستاني وحزب الاتحاد الوطني الكردستاني معاً على الشؤون السياسية والاقتصادية للمنطقه ، وقد حافظا على اتفاق لتقاسم السلطة منذ أول تأسيس لحكومة إقليم كردستان في العام 1992 ، على الرغم من شكوك حامت حول اندلاع حرب أهلية وتوترات . ومؤخراً فقط دعا مسؤولون رئيسيون من كلا الحزبين إلى تمديد ولاية البرلمان في كردستان ثمانية أشهر ، وإلى تأجيل الانتخابات مرة أخرى – مؤكدين أكثر على سيطرتهم السياسيه ” .
وأكدت المجلة الاميركية أن ” المعارضه المحليه لهذين الحزبين ولحكومة إقليم كردستان كانت واضحة خلال الإستفتاء ؛ فبينما صوتت معاقل الحزب الديمقراطي الكردستاني في دهوك وأجزاء من أربيل بـ” نعم ” بنسبة تراوحت بين 80 إلى 95 في المائه ، شهدت أجزاء من محافظة السليمانيه إقبالاً منخفضاً إلى نحو 50 في المائه . وقد تعمقت هذه الإنقسامات منذ الإستفتاء وإنهياره . وحتى مع أن بعض الأكراد يلومون الحكومات الأجنبيه على إفشال محاولة الاستقلال ، فإن الأغلبيه الساحقه يشعرون بأنهم تعرضوا للخداع من قادتهم في الحزبين الكرديين الرئيسيين ” .
كما أن الصراعات على السلطة إحتدمت أيضاً في داخل وبين الأحزاب السياسيه بما يمتد إلى ما وراء المنافسه بين الحزب الديمقراطي الكردستاني وحزب الإتحاد الوطني الكردستاني . وقد أشر العنف الأخير في برلمان كردستان العراق بعد بيان ” إستقالة ” برزاني والتوترات المتواصله بين المجموعات على ضعف الإستقرار السياسي داخل منطقة كردستان ، كما ذكرت الباحثه الأميركيه التي إستدركت أيضاً ” لكن من غير المرجح نشوب صراع مسلح مطوّل ، على الرغم من إحتمال إستمرار إندلاع حرب إعلاميه وتفجرات للعنف ، على نحو متقطع “ .
وأضافت ” كانت مجموعات معارضه ومستقلون وحزب إصلاحي جديد بزعامة رئيس الوزراء السابق في حكومة إقليم كردستان العراق ، برهم صالح ، قد دعوا إلى تشكيل ” حكومة إنتقالية ” لحل الأزمات السياسية والاقتصادية لحكومة إقليم كردستان . ولكن ، حتى مع إخلاء السيد برزاني منصبه ، ليس هناك سبب لتوقع إنهيار بيت برزاني أو بيت طالباني – وهما العائلتان اللتان كانتا خلف تشكيل الحزب الديمقراطي الكردستاني وحزب الاتحاد الوطني الكردستاني على التوالي – في أي وقت قريب . وللحزب الديمقراطي الكردستاني جذور مؤسساتية في العراق منذ الأربعينيات، وتذهب شبكات رعاية عائلة برزاني عميقاً . وسوف يحتفظ برزاني بنفوذ في ” مجلس القيادة السياسية ” ، بينما سيظل نجله ، مسرور ، رئيساً للجهاز الأمني في الحزب الديمقراطي الكردستاني وسيظل ابن أخيه ، نجيرفان برزاني ، رئيساً للوزراء ” .
ورأت الكاتبة أن “حكومة إقليم كردستان تبدوعرضة لإستخلاص الدرس الخطأ بالضبط من الفوضى التي جلبها الإستفتاء . فبدلاً من الإقرار بسوء حساباتهم الإستراتيجيه ، نفى برزاني وغيره من القادة الأكراد المسؤولية عن فشل الإستفتاء وإنهياره . ومن الممكن التعويل على هذه المجموعه للإستمرار في لعب دور الضحيه ولوم ” الخونه ” على مظاهر عجزهم المؤسساتيه ، والعزف على وتر التهديدات الخارجية ، بما في ذلك من إيران وميليشياتها ، بدلاً من تكريس الاهتمام لمشاكلهم الداخلية وإصلاحهم المؤسسي ” .
واعتقدت بالقول ” حتى عند ذلك ، سوف تظل الملامح الأساسيه لمنطقة كردستان بلا تغيير . سوف يظل الإقليم غير مطل على منافد مائيه ، ومعتمداً على الآخرين إقتصادياً ، ومرتبطاً ببغداد وتركيا وايران ، ومقسماً سياسياً . وسوف تصبح نقاط الضعف واضحه بإزدياد مع إكتساب الحكوم المركزيه في العراق نفوذاً ومصداقية في عموم البلد والمنطقه ، وبينما تستمر النزعه الوطنيه العراقيه بالنمو في أوساط الجماهير ” .
وتختم مقالها المطول قائلة ” تحت هذه الظروف ، لا تملك حكومة إقليم كردستان سوى خيار التفاوض مع الحكومة العراقية ودول الإقليم من أجل الاستدامه ، تماماً كما فعلت على مدى عقود ، لكن الفارق الآن ، بعد إجراء الاستفتاء الكارثي ، هو إنها بدلاً من أن تتفاوض من موقف قوه ، فقد أصبح على حكومة إقليم كردستان أن تتعامل مع بغداد من موقف الضعف ” .
Iraqi Kurdistan Was Never Ready for Statehood
The war against the Islamic State concealed the Kurds’ political and economic weaknesses. The loss of Kirkuk has made them impossible to ignore.
October 31, 2017
Iraqi Kurdistan’s referendum on independence has made an already bad situation for the Kurds far worse. Instead of enhancing the Kurds’ political leverage and autonomy, it has squandered international goodwill toward them, antagonized Baghdad and its neighbors, and deepened economic risks and societal fissures. It has also spurred the loss of control over important territories and resources. Iraqi security forces have reasserted authority over Kirkuk and its oil assets, other “disputed territories,” and Iraqi border crossings after a negotiated withdrawal of Peshmerga forces.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) now finds itself hemmed in politically and economically. Although the KRG has offered to “freeze” the referendum results in response to the political fallout and in order to forestall the advances of Iraqi forces into a Kurdish-controlled territory, the Iraqi government is demanding full cancellation, although both sides are engaged in negotiations. The fallout from the referendum also promises to reorder the KRG’s internal politics; President Masoud Barzani has announced that he will step down from his post on November 1.
But the referendum was the catalyst and not the cause of the KRG’s current crisis. The KRG leadership has promoted a narrative about the region being a secular democracy with a booming economy and cohesive military force — but, in reality, the landlocked region has long been economically unstable, institutionally weak, and politically divided.
The KRG leadership’s first mistake was to focus heavily on garnering international support for its ambitious state-building project, rather than getting buy-in from Iraqis. Instead of drawing non-Kurds into its “Kurdistani” territories as equal citizens, the KRG discriminated against them. During a visit to northern Iraq days before the independence referendum, one Arab businessman told me how “even in business we are not equal” and complained about additional taxes he had to pay to move goods within the Kurdistan region. Assyrians reacted angrily to land confiscations by the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the replacement of their local leaders by KDP officials — a process that they say aims to “erase” them from the Nineveh Plains. Many Yazidis still harbor resentment for having been abandoned by the KDP to the Islamic State in 2014.
As a result, non-Kurdish Iraqis were overwhelmingly opposed to a Kurdish state, particularly one that included the oil-rich province of Kirkuk. One prominent Arab tribal leader told me, days before the referendum, that only 5 in 100 Arabs in Kirkuk would accept KRG dominance over the area. Another Arab leader told me frankly that he would never treat the outcome as legitimate: “It’s not done. We will get [Kirkuk] back.”
All UsersEven if the independence referendum hadn’t stirred domestic and regional opposition, the absence of a sufficient KRG revenue stream and a unified military command structure would have undermined its ability to hold and secure the territories it gained during the war against the Islamic State. (The KRG’s territory expanded by 40 percent during the military campaign.) The region’s rapid economic development from 2008 to 2012 was largely financed by Iraq’s oil wealth and not a self-sustaining Kurdish economy. The KRG’s decision in 2014 to circumvent Baghdad with “independent” oil sales, together with the fall in oil prices and the costs of the military campaign against the Islamic State, reinforced its economic vulnerability. Although the KRG has cut spending and raised taxes, it failed to ever effectively reckon with its financial and political problems.
Meanwhile, Kurdish military victories relied heavily on external backing — specifically, coalition air power — rather than the KRG’s own institutional strength. Control over the KRG’s security forces, including the Peshmerga, has long been divided between the two main political parties across the region’s three provinces.
These divisions became apparent after the referendum, when some leaders from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the other main Kurdish party, negotiated a deal with Baghdad and withdrew their Peshmerga troops from Kirkuk without fully informing officials in the ruling KDP party or others within the PUK. It also explains why various factions are now accusing each other of being traitors and “selling out Kirkuk.”
The spectacular loss of Kirkuk, along with its oil fields and assets, and a number of smaller fields in Ninewah province, now promises to deepen the KRG’s financial hole. These losses have thus far reduced the Kurdistan region’s oil production and exports from about 600,000 to about 280,000 barrels per day, taking about 55 percent of the KRG’s oil export revenue with it. They also come at a time of declining prospects for the KRG’s energy sector: The price of oil has dipped precipitously, and international oil companies (IOCs) have pulled out of 19 exploration blocks inside the region since 2014.
The financial fallout has ended any hope the Kurds had of creating an autonomous and self-sustaining economy separate from Baghdad. These straitened conditions will make it even more difficult for the KRG to pay its civil servant salaries — which have not been fully paid in two years — its more than $20 billion in debt, IOC operating costs, and oil traders. The much-hyped energy deals that the KRG signed with Turkey and the Russian oil company Rosneft may continue — but these foreign investments, particularly after the referendum, are likely to come at the expense of Kurdish control over its own energy market and pricing mechanisms. Baghdad’s closure of international airspace in the Kurdistan region, the cancellation of some regional flights, and threats of border closures from Turkey and Iran — if continued — can only add to the economic morass.
Kurdish leaders are also increasingly under pressure to implement political reforms. The ruling KDP and the PUK together dominate the region’s political and economic affairs and have maintained a power-sharing pact since the first KRG was established in 1992, despite bouts of civil war and tensions. Just recently key officials from both parties called to extend the Kurdistan Parliament’s term for eight months and to postpone elections once again – further assuring their political control.
Local opposition to these parties and the KRG was evident during the referendum: While strongholds of the ruling KDP in Dohuk and parts of Irbil had an 80 to 95 percent “yes” vote, parts of Sulaimaniyah province saw a turnout that dipped as low as 50 percent. These divisions have only deepened since the referendum and its fallout. Even though some Kurds blame foreign governments for the failed independence bid, the vast majority feel cheated by their own leaders in the KDP and PUK.
Power struggles have also been reinforced within and between the political parties, that extend beyond traditional KDP-PUK rivalries. The recent violence in the Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament after Barzani’s “resignation” statement, and ongoing tensions among groups underlines the fragility of political stability inside the Kurdistan region. Sustained armed conflict is unlikely, although a media war and outbreaks of violence may continue, sporadically.
Opposition groups, independents, and a new reformist party led by former KRG Prime Minister Barham Salih have called for a “transitional government” to help resolve the KRG’s political and economic crises. But even if Barzani vacates his office, there’s no reason to expect the downfall of the House of Barzani or the House of Talabani — the two families behind the KDP and PUK, respectively — anytime soon. The KDP has institutional roots in Iraq since the 1940s, and the Barzani family’s patronage networks run deep. Barzani will retain influence in a “political leadership council” while his son Masrour will remain as head of the KDP security apparatus, and his nephew Nechirvan Barzani will remain as prime minister.
The KRG leadership seems poised to draw precisely the wrong lesson from the havoc wrought by the referendum. Instead of admitting their strategic miscalculations, Barzani and other Kurdish leaders have denied responsibility for the referendum fiasco and its fallout. This group can be counted on to continue playing the victim card, blaming “traitors” for their institutional deficiencies, and harping on outside threats, including Iran and its militias, rather than devoting attention to their internal problems and institutional reform.
Even then, the fundamental features of the Kurdistan region will remain unchanged. It will still be landlocked, economically dependent, bound to Baghdad, Turkey and Iran, and politically divided. These weaknesses will become increasingly apparent as Iraq’s central government gains leverage and credibility across the country and the region, and Iraqi nationalism continues to grow in salience among the public.
Under these conditions, the KRG has little choice but to negotiate with the Iraqi government and regional states to survive, just as it has done for decades. The difference now that the disastrous referendum has been held is that instead of negotiating from a position of strength, the KRG must now deal with Baghdad from a position of weakness.
Subject: You’d think the US would stand with Kurds, here’s why America won’t
You’d think the US would stand with Kurds, here’s why America won’t
October 29, 2017 · ·
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
After the shock of October 16th when the Iraqi army rolled into Kirkuk and Kurdish forces withdrew in disarray, many Kurdish voices on social media have sought answers for the “betrayal.” They wonder how it is possible after years fighting ISIS shoulder-to-shoulder with Americans, and many western powers, that their friends would evaporate so quickly and leave them at the mercy of a burgeoning nationalist power in Baghdad and a gloating Tehran eager to permanently weaken and carve up the Kurdistan Regional Government. Many wonders why the US didn’t send high-level diplomats to sort out the crises and encourage a peaceful resolution of conflict as part of a strategy of a strong post-ISIS Iraq. One would think US policymakers would be aghast seeing US-trained Iraqi troops and US humvees used against allies.
For US policy-makers this was never a question. Of course, the US would stand with Baghdad, the sovereign “unifying” Iraqi government. Any statements to the contrary would seem to support Kurdistan secession and would send the wrong message to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, whose government the US has invested billions of dollars in. Any deviation from full-throated support for Baghdad could drive Abadi into the arms of Iran at the most inopportune time. America is trying to sort out the post-ISIS the Middle East and Iraq is key to that. Fourteen years after the 2003 invasion the US is beholden to Iraq more than at any time in history. The power relations between Baghdad and Washington have also altered. Where once the US led the way in the surge and the US controlled Iraq, helping midwife a constitution in 2005 and elections, Iraq is now weighing its choices. It is a country whose Prime Minister behaves independently and which hosts numerous pro-Iranian Shia militia leaders that have been invited to be part of the government. The US needs to convince it not to go with Tehran, but to stay close to Riyadh, and Washington has invested deeply in that relationship over the last year or more. From policy-makers eyes in Washington, Iraq is the hinge on which the Middle East will pivot.
Provoking Iran in Iraq is not the right way forward, that is why the US believes that supporting Baghdad against the Kurdistan region is the best way to fan the flames of Iraqi nationalism, which the US thinks will tone down and distract from “ethno-sectarian” division. That means that encouraging anti-Kurdish rhetoric is actually the “solution” to Iraq’s problems, because in the US view that can unite Arab Sunnis and Shia against a common enemy, and keep them from being distracted by Iran’s role.
As odd as this may seem, the US policy is to encourage Iraqi nationalism. No matter that that nationalism inevitably means anti-Kurdish sentiment. Around 160,000 Kurds have fled areas near Kirkuk and Zummar since the clashes began on October 16, but for the US that is a worthwhile sacrifice to save Iraq. After all, it is not the first mass exodus of people from the country. Largely the “saving” of Iraq since 2003 has meant the destruction of most of the country and elimination of groups that oppose the government the US helped midwife to power.
Iraqi nationalism: The US answer to Iraq
The US was close to the Nouri al-Malaki regime, even as it had concerns about Iranian influence after the surge. Let’s recall how the New York Times described Brett McGurk in 2012 when Obama nominated him as ambassador to Iraq, a nomination that he withdrew from when a small scandal erupted. “Mr. McGurk’s withdrawal was a blow to the White House as it sought to manage the next phase in Iraq’s postwar development. Since pulling out American troops in December after eight years of combat, Mr. Obama has been trying to preserve a fragile stability in Iraq amid sporadic violence and concerns about Iranian influence. The White House has been worried that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki might develop into another strongman.”
The US under Obama preferred Maliki. As Emma Sky notes at Foreign Affairs; “When Iraqiya, the nationalist, nonsectarian political party led by Ayad Allawi, narrowly defeated the Dawa Party, led by Nouri al-Maliki, the incumbent prime minister, the Obama administration failed to uphold the right of the winning bloc to have the first go at forming a government. Instead, it signaled its desire to keep Maliki in power, despite the stipulations of the Iraqi constitution and the objections of Iraqi politicians.”
The rest is history. Maliki’s oppressive and Shia supremacist sectarian rule helped to grow extremism. When ISIS appeared Maliki’s army disintegrated leaving 2,300 US Humvees and massive ordinance to be captured by the enemy. In an odd irony, the ineffective disaster that Maliki bequeathed to Iraq became a new reason for the US to step in to find new leadership it could see as the next savior. Abadi, despite being a member of Maliki’s party, has become that leader. The US hopes they can move him to form his own power base, beholden to America, even as he cleverly uses America for his own projects. Despite many voices who have warned about Iranian influence in Iraq and suggested that a breakup of the country might be better, the reality is that institutional Washington, or what some would like to call the “deep state,” cannot countenance such fanciful thinking. Washington, since the end of colonialism in the 1960s, has picked up the neo-colonial banner stepping into the breach that European countries abandoned; not in the sense of conquering other states and colonizing them, but seeking to become a global hegemony that adjudicates the world’s affairs. So some ask rightly why the US supported the breakup of Yugoslavia and an independent Kosovo, but not Kurdistan. Because one is in US interests and the other not. Henry Kissinger said, “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.” The concept of allies, Washington insiders and realists would say is naive, ridiculously romantic, and counter-productive to US interests.
Being a safe region hasn’t necessarily helped Kurdistan region gain friends in West
US foreign policy is not based on US values
There is another critique of US policy in places like Iraq that asks: What about American values. Those Wilsonian values of “self-determination,” those Kennedy values of “support any friend.” Those values would dovetail more with Erbil than Baghdad (see a series of interesting tweets on this subject by Rukmini Callimico). Baghdad bans alcohol. In Baghdad, most foreign journalists and foreigners, in general, do not leave the Green Zone or guarded hotels for fear of kidnapping or terror. In the Kurdistan region they do. But values are also seen as naive in Washington policy circles. Of course, the US pays lip-service to “democracy” and “self-determination” historically. The State Department releases its annual “religious freedom” report. But US allies in the world tend to be countries who restrict religious freedom the most. Countries buying the most weapons from the US are not exactly a whose-who of democracies. Three Gulf monarchies have topped the list in recent years; Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Other countries with abysmal human rights records, including countries imprisoning the most journalists, are among the US closest allies. Anyone that assumes US foreign policy would reflect American values is not only mistaken, but US foreign policy can often be counted upon to reflect the diametric opposite of US values. In short, the more a country abuses human rights and suppresses free speech and imprisons journalists, the less secular it is and the more it crushes religious freedom, the more likely it is to be a US ally. This may be a happenstance of history or a product of the Cold War. During the Cold War, the US often allied with conservative monarchies or religious extremist regimes such as Pakistan, to fight against the Soviets. The reasoning was that sometimes you must ally with a bad actor to defeat an even worse actor on the world stage. Sixteen years after 9/11, two of the countries closely connected to the hijackers, including the country many of them came from, and the country that supported the regime that hosted them in Afghanistan, are two key US allies.
US officials tend to feel more secure in dictatorships because they tend to be treated better by dictators. They tend to have reliable and consistent foreign policies that don’t change much over time. They don’t ask their pesky parliaments for permission to base US troops, critical journalists don’t ask questions and there are no annoying referendums.. Democracies tend to be ruder and diplomats must find their way and deal with protests and the open society. But in a dictatorship diplomats get to feel a bit like Lawrence of Arabia and it is addicting. The number of US diplomats who come back from the Gulf and end up supporting the former regime they were based in or working as lobbyists for it is quite high. The numbers who come back from democracies and do that is quite low. Dictatorships and religiously conservative countries cast an exotic spell over westerners that boring democracies do not. Westerners posted to foreign dictatorships anyway do not have to suffer the rod of the dictatorship, they aren’t a persecuted minority, they don’t have to navigate the bureaucracy, or be disappeared and tortured. So for them the experience of the Green Zone-style life or its equivalent is great.
Often in the war on terror, the very countries that have dabbled in supporting extremist terrorism, tend to be US allies out of the logic that only they can control the Frankenstein of extremism that they helped to create. If you want to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan, you’ve got to ally with the group that helped create it. You have to at least balance the two.
Interests, not long-term
That doesn’t mean the US has not worked with plenty of groups seeking freedom over the years. From John Garang in Sudan, to Ahmed Shah Masoud, the US has worked with what would appear to be the better side of the equation of freedom against tyranny. However, generally these relationships are short-term and occur only when the local freedom fighters’ interests happen to dovetail with the US. The Kurdish relationship is emblematic of that. When the Kurds could be used by the US and Iran against Saddam Hussein and Iraq. However once an agreement could be found at Algiers in 1975, the US support evaporated. When Saddam launched his genocidal gas attacks on Kurds in the 1980s. Declassified documents show the US knew about and even aided Saddam in his weapons program in the 1980s. This was in the context of fighting Iran, which had taken 52 American hostages in 1979 and held them for 444 days. An article on the US role in Iraq in the 1980s notes “The US provided less conventional military equipment than British or German companies but it did allow the export of biological agents, including anthrax; vital ingredients for chemical weapons; and cluster bombs sold by a CIA front organisation in Chile, the report says.”
This is the context within which one should understand what the US is doing in Iraq today. It would seem unprecedented that after three years fighting ISIS that the US would simply remain silent as Iraqi forces, led by Shia militias, have attacked Kurdish forces. One would think that the seventy-nation coalition would express surprise and seek to intervene to stop the clashes. One would think that the US would be surprised to see its Humvees and the units it trained used against Kurdish peshmerga, rather than ISIS. One would think, since the US is officially opposed to the meddling role of Iran in the region, it would notice how so much Iraq policy is influenced by Qassem Soleimani of the the Quds Force of the IRGC.
Iran played a key role opposing KRG referendum
Shock about this sudden turn of events is misplaced. For the cynical and pragmatic US diplomat and their advisors, it is important not to get emotional about these things. The Kurdistan region was useful in 2014-2016, but once ISIS was largely defeated, the US can revert to its one-Iraq policy rooted in Baghdad. The Kurdistan region is largely a distraction for Washington today. Its attempt to remind the US that it was once an ally and a stable and successful part of Iraq where US diplomats and officials went to support the war on ISIS, is like the nagging conscience that has to be turned off. Some US policymakers see the creation of the KRG as a historic mistake and wish that the US had not catered to it in 2005 as it eroded Iraqi “unity” and gave Kurds “false hopes” independence one day. The real goal of the US now is to remake Iraq without Sunni Arab or Kurdish politics playing much of a role. Minorities require balancing interests and fostering pluralism, it’s easier to work with Abadi and rely on one person, like the US worked with Maliki.
A recent policy proposal for the US, that has no doubt already been adopted in some form, suggests that “official U.S. statements should refer to populations in Iraq as Iraqis within particular territorial units and not as ethnosectarian groups (Sunni, Shi’a, Kurd).” Translation: If you just pretend they don’t exist, then the “ethno-sectarian” groups will go away. For Washington, reducing the presence of Shia militias, and the tendency of Iraqi army units the US trains to fly Shia flags is not a priority. Punishing Erbil is the priority. “Pleading with and coddling Kurdish officials is not a policy and does not advance U.S. interests.. If Washington seeks a stable partner in Erbil as part of Iraq, it should stop enabling bad behavior and place conditions on its support to the Kurdistan Regional Government, including institutional reform and termination of military and financial support.” Of particular interest is the likely new US policy of “supporting nationalist trends toward a civil Iraqi state.” To wean Iraq of its reliance on Iran, the US should show that its support is a “better alternative.” to Iranian militias. The Kurdistan referendum gave the US the excuse to allow the KRG to be economically weakened and partially crippled. US policymakers sometimes say this is because the KRG is riven with “corruption” and “family politics.” However, the US doesn’t mind the same family politics in Qatar, or corruption in other countries and groups it works with.
Latent colonialism disorder: America’s Lawrence of Arabic complex
Now the US wants to stay in Iraq for the long term, and the Kurdistan region, in a bizarre and ironic way, is seen as the main obstacle to the US attempt to remake Iraq once more. As Glaser and Preble write at The National Interest: “If the country fractures in two, or more, that could further enhance Iranian influence in Baghdad and the rest of Shiite-dominated Iraq—something U.S. policy has consistently resisted.” To prevent Iranian influence the US wants to sell Iraqi nationalism. This is a repetition of the US policy in Iraq after the surge. “The Obama administration insisted that Maliki was an Iraqi nationalist and a friend of the United States.” In some ways, the US suffers from a kind of Latent Colonization Disorder. Since the US came to the colonial game late, it feels the need to make up for what it sees as the failures of former colonizing powers like the UK and France, by using its own methods. Here we can see the tendency of the US to decide for Iraqs that they are “nationalists” and to tell them that their very authentic ethnic and religious feelings are not acceptable.. Only the US can make them into “nationalists” the way the British once brought King Faisal to “unify” Iraq. If Kurds say “we are Kurdish” that is “sectarian.” If African-Americans say “we are African-American,” that identity politics is acceptable, in America. Because largely American policy consists of doing abroad the opposite of what one does at home. So if you celebrate diversity at home, you celebrate nationalism abroad.
In contrast to the knee-jerk dislike of the Kurdistan Regional Government among some policymakers and advisors, Sky notes in her Foreign Affairs piece that disputes between Iraq and the KRG should be “negotiated between Baghdad and Erbil, endorsed by neighboring countries, and recognized by the international community. Either way, the United States should support the revitalization of the UN’s efforts to determine, district by district, the border between Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq. This process should also consider granting Kirkuk special status in recognition of its diverse population, contested history, and oil wealth. No Iraqi prime minister can afford to lose Kirkuk. International mediation could help broker a compromise.”
That would be ideal, and one would think in US interests, to have a stable and peaceful Iraq. But Iran has moved faster than the US in encouraging Iraq to move on Kirkuk and Iran has used its leverage among parts of the PUK political party to create internal divisions in the KRG. It has also encouraged Iraq to press to control the entire Syrian border. It is no surprise that while Abadi was out of the country flying to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey and Iran between October 22-26, that Iranian-backed militias were continuing clashes with the Peshmerga. This wasn’t kept secret, Hadi al-Amiri and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were photographed on the frontlines near Zummar and Rabiah, planning the operations.. Abadi outsources his Kurdistan policy to these commanders. The Interior Ministry, which is controlled by Badr, used the ERD, which has been seconded to the Federal Police during the last year of operations against ISIS in Mosul and elsewhere, as part of the forces attacking the Kurds. But for the most part this was not an Iraqi army operation, but a Hashd al-Shaabi, PMU, operation. There is no real difference, since Abadi has stressed to US Secretary of State Tillerson that the PMU is the “hope” of Iraq and the region, and an institution of the government. He has repeatedly rejected calls for it to be dissolved and “go home.” Even though the role of the militias was conceived to fight ISIS when Maliki’s army fell apart, they are likely not going home and will continue to help guide Iraq’s policy.
Amiri showed up at a “Dialogue on terrorism” event in Baghdad in fatigues on October 28. This is the real face of Iraq, the one that US policymakers want to ignore. They hope that if they can just ignore the ill-treatment of the Sunni areas and the Kurdistan region, that they can finally get Iraq to be what they want it to be. Their policy is to simply not mention minorities in Iraq, and hope that by doing so any complaints from them will go away.
Critics might say this is cynical. But insiders say this is smart and realistic. “Don’t get emotional about the Kurdish Peshmerga. Yes, they played their role, but now is the time for Iraq. Supporting Kurds only weakens Baghdad and harms Abadi. He has told us that if we want him to work with the Saudis, we must permanently weaken the Kurdish region back to 2003 levels.” Western powers agree. Just days after Iraq seized Kirkuk, reports said that Iraqi Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi met BP executives with the hopes of getting to work in the oil fields. British foreign policy on Iraq is likely closely tied to these kinds of interests.
The Kurdistan region has been sacrificed quickly and cleanly by western policymakers. This was a decision made in unison because for each country involved in the Kurdistan region, their interests in defeating ISIS had ended and they have no interest in fanciful ideas like “self-determination.” When Kurdish activists show photos of Iraqi vehicles with Shia sectarian flags or Ayatollah Khamenei on them, or Iranian IRGC in Iraq, or abuses of Kurds, western diplomats turn a blind eye because they know that admitting what has happened in Iraq would force them to admit Iran has outplayed them (the US does the same in Lebanon to a different degree). They prefer to say that Iranian presence is “alleged” or “inflated” and to quietly whisper that it is “Israel” and pro-Israel commentators who are exaggerating the role of Iran (US policymakers are suspicious of the role of “neo-cons” in pushing for US wars with Iran). Al-Muhandis and Amiri are just Iraqi nationalists, they say. They think enough to guns and butter can make the “nationalists” wean themselves of Iranian influence, confronting ideology and faith with goods and services, as was done in Vietnam. No need to mention that al-Muhandis is still considered a terrorist by the US, even as it works with institutions that work with him. The US Department of State clarified that again on October 26:
QUESTION: One of the things is that Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the head of Kata’ib Hizballah, whom Treasury designated a terrorist in 2009 for attacking U.S. and Iraqi troops, has just opened a recruiting station in Kirkuk. Do you have a comment on that?
MS NAUERT: Yeah. So I saw that you’re – that report earlier. You’re correct; he is a terrorist. I cannot confirm that report, but I would have to say, if that report is correct, we hope his recruitment efforts fail miserably.
QUESTION: Does it bother you that he is part of the PMF and technically part of the Iraqi Government and otherwise supported by Iran, and maybe the Iraqis should take action against him?
MS NAUERT: He is a terrorist, and beyond that – I’m just not going to go beyond that, okay? It’s clear that he is a terrorist, okay?
The hope of Western policymakers is that nagging questions about what has become of the Kurdistan region, once flourishing with airports and a hub of economy and stability, hosting numerous foreigners and even a “capital of tourism” not so long ago, will eventually go away. Baghdad has sought to ban Kurdish channels Rudaw and Kurdistan 24, which would also be viewed as a welcome development in the West. The less news, the better from the Kurdistan region. The same policy has been deployed by Western media and policymakers in seeking to not report on what happens to Kurds in neighboring states.
Ramifications for Syria
The plan that has played out in Iraq, using Kurdish forces to fight ISIS, and then walking away from them once Baghdad and the Peshmerga clashed, is being watched closely in Syria among the US “allies” in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The US has emphasized that the only goal in Syria is to defeat ISIS, nothing more.. The recent visit by Saudi Gulf Affairs Minister Thamer al-Sabhan with Brett McGurk, the U.S. special envoy to the coalition against Islamic State, appears to show the US is involved in something a bit more than just war in Syria. Here again, it comes back to a bit of the Lawrence of Arabia complex of some westerners who want to help Syria, but only on their terms. So the US is using Saudi money in Syria, as it has tried to do the same to bring Abadi into the Saudi camp. Time and again US policy is exploited either by Saudi Arabia or Iran for their own ends. The brilliance of this is that US policymakers think they are just doing what is good for “our interests” without asking who else has interests. They don’t ask about Abadi’s visit to Tehran, in which Iranian officials told him that the US created ISIS, because Abadi is “our ally” and “our man in Baghdad.”
In Syria, the US hopes it can craft some kind of new policy with the Saudis on the ground. What that policy remains unclear, but in the long-run the chances that it will serve the interests of the SDF and YPG, who have fought alongside the US against ISIS, is slim. If the SDF and YPG are smart they will realize that what happened in northern Iraq will happen to them. Don’t get emotional, don’t ask how its possible the US can so quickly walk away from people who fought and died against a common enemy. That is US policy. The US has no friends. It has only interests.
Its interests in northern Syria is not a secular or democratic place. Don’t talk to Americans about “but your Declaration of Independence says” and “Woodrow Wilson said” and “JFK said” and “FDR said.” Those values no longer exist in America, and if they exist they exist least in policy-making circles. Once potential groups and allies of the US understand that talking about values or saying “but we fought together” and talking about “democracy” and “secularism” and “human rights” is not the way to win American hearts and minds, the better. America has values fatigue from decades of war, from contradictions and hypocrisies. It has a cynical outlook on the world. In general, it views dictatorships, monarchies, and states that suppress religious freedom as stable and reliable. Democracies are chaotic. The Arab spring was chaotic. The 2004 book arguing that the US sees the world as one fought between chaos and “functioning” countries, puts nascent democracies in the chaos court. Ideal allies are the Gulf states. Democracy is a 20th-century value.
The best that America can do today is fight terrorism, which it excels at through numerous military bases and masses of special forces and drones. Anyone who thinks to partner with the US on that level translates into some kind of social partnership after or long-term values-based policy, is mistaken. The KRG partnered with America over killing ISIS. ISIS was defeated and with it went the need for the US to maintain support for the KRG.