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| Iraq |
| Iraq-Kurdish Relations Go from Bad to Worse |
| 2012-12-29 |
| Day after day, the belief strengthens that the possibility for a peaceful resolution (or at least containment) of the crisis between the central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have grown remote, if not altogether vanished. The signs pointing to escalation outnumber those pointing to a truce or cooling down. Regardless of whether the ongoing escalation will lead to an all-out armed confrontation between the two sides or not, the vanishing of opportunities for a peaceful resolution may be attributed to a number of reasons. Here we highlight four of them. Firstly and principally: the complete breakdown of trust between the two sides at the very highest levels, namely, Prime Minister and head of the ‘State of Law’ coalition Nouri al-Maliki, and the President of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Massoud Barzani. Trust has broken down not least because of the direct accusations and blunt statements to be hurled by both sides, whether from the leaders themselves or from their close associates. In a recent statement, Maliki expressed the view that current events in Iraq’s various regions and the nature of the statements coming out of KRG officials do not signal a sincere desire to resolve the nation’s difficulties through dialogue. In a semi-official statement by the "State of Law" coalition released roughly the same time, one finds a string of accusations directed against Barzani. The statement claims that Barzani violated the constitution and “all Iraqi laws” when he sheltered Tariq al-Hashemi, a criminal wanted on charges of terrorism. As for the regions under the control of the KRG, the leadership of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) led by Barzani said that Maliki is encouraging an ethnic conflict between Arabs and Kurds, and accused him of being the first Iraqi prime minister preparing the army for war and internal conflict. Further emphasizing the total, or near-total, breakdown in trust is the ongoing military buildup by both sides in the disputed territories — or what the Kurds have taken to calling the “regions cut off from the KRG,” while the central government refers to them as “the mixed regions.” Another reason lies in the sharp polarization and new alignments. Talabani who, along with his party had been sympathetic to Maliki and closely allied with him, suddenly lined up with Barzani. So too did the Kurdish Movement for Change, under the leadership of Nawshirwan Mustafa, along with the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Islamic Union. As a result, Barzani can now legitimately claim to speak on behalf of the Kurdish consensus. One might add to the above groups various political centers of power and Turkmen tribes in Kirkuk as well as in other regions that have adopted a KRG-friendly position. In contrast, Maliki was able to draw social and political forces from outside his parliamentary bloc and its partisan satellites. They encouraged him to adopt a more extreme and unyielding position toward the Kurds. The latter are viewed in many circles — both Arab and non-Arab — as having endless demands and limitless ambitions. Money began to flow from some parties to others in order to secure the necessary military and logistic capabilities, as well as to win more supporters in the political sphere, the media, and the public. The outside parties did not intervene in order to reach a resolution, but to support one of the two parties in this crisis and weaken the other. Their goal is to weaken the effectiveness and diminish the influence of those parties that desire to find a peaceful resolution and realistic settlement with minimum loss and strife. Since the Iraqi government has adopted positions that seemed supportive of the Syrian regime and in line with Iran’s own stance, regional and international actors began to incite against the current government and support its rivals in order to weaken it. Indeed, perhaps the recurring political and media leaks about Ankara and Doha’s intervention in the crisis between Baghdad and Erbil are both plausible and rational. The further the crisis in Syria deepens and heads in the direction of grave deterioration, so too does the political polarization in Iraq, intensified by external factors and influences. The final reason for the diminishing or collapsing opportunities to resolve the latest lies in the unfortunate reality that this crisis is not, in fact, the first of its kind. Rather, it is the product of a number of crises that have cumulatively built up over the last ten years. Indeed, some of those prior crises have roots extending back decades. This is to say nothing of the intricate problems and crises stemming from the legitimate differences of opinion concerning the administration of the state, how its policies are determined and its order of priorities enumerated. Even if the proximate cause were defused, this would not lead to the defusing of other crises. And even if this were achieved, it would only hold for a short period of time. |
| Posted by:Pappy |