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The secret of Kurdistan's relative success so
far--and of America's enduring popularity here--is
the officially unacknowledged fact that the three
provinces of the Kurdish north are already
quasi-independent. On Oct. 11, Iraq's parliament
approved a law that would allow the Sunni and Shiite
provinces also to form semi-autonomous regions with
the same powers that the constitution has confirmed
in Kurdistan. And while Kurdish leaders pay
lip-service to President Bush's stubborn insistence
on the need for a unified Iraq with a strong
centralized government, Kurdistan is staunchly
resisting efforts to concentrate economic control in
Baghdad.
The U.S., Mr. Barzani believes, should leave it to
the Iraqis to decide if they want "one or two or
three regions." Then, he adds: "But it already
exists. The division is there as a practical matter.
People are being killed on the basis of identity."
As for Baghdad, "it should have a special status as
the federal capital. But the rest should be regions
that run their own affairs. Or they should be
separate. Only a voluntary union can work. Either
you have federalism with Baghdad as a federal
capital with a special status, or you have
separation. Those are the facts."
Even the most fleeting visitor cannot but notice
that Kurdistan is almost a full-fledged state. The
Kurds have been running their own affairs--badly at
times--ever since Washington created a safe area
after Saddam Hussein crushed their U.S.-encouraged
uprising after the 1991 Gulf War, sending much of
the traumatized population into the rugged mountains
separating Kurdish Iraq from Turkey. After CNN
filmed Kurds dying of cold and starvation, President
George H.W. Bush declared a "no fly" zone north of
the 36th parallel from which Saddam's planes were
barred, enabling the Kurds, at long last, to begin
governing themselves. And so they have, with a
determination born of historic vengeance.
Kurds no longer speak Arabic, but various dialects
of Kurdish, in offices and schools throughout the
74,000 square miles that comprise their provinces.
They fly their own flag, provide their own services,
raise their own army--the legendarily disciplined
Pesh Merga, or "Those Who Face Death"--and have
gradually consolidated their de facto state. Divided
between two parties--Mr. Barzani's Kurdistan
Democratic Party, his clan's power base in north
Kurdistan, and the southern-based Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan, headed by Jalal Talabani, now president
of Iraq (or "President of the Green Zone," as Kurds
here call the post)--Kurdistan is booming with
construction, new businesses and ambitious dreams of
self-rule.
Washington's refusal to accept this self-evident
political reality does not trouble Mr. Barzani. On
the contrary, he insists Kurdistan will remain part
of Iraq--as long as Iraq remains federal, secular
and democratic, and officially blesses the autonomy
the Kurds managed to enshrine in the new Iraqi
constitution. Besides, the fig-leaf of Iraq is
useful: Declaring independence would risk provoking
Turkey, for which an independent Kurdish state is
anathema given its own 18 million strong Kurdish
population and the continued existence of the
terrorist Kurdistan Workers Party--the PKK--on the
Iraqi-Kurdish side of the border. Yet Mr. Barzani
adamantly denies that his fidelity to Iraq is born
of fear. "Having an independent state is the natural
legitimate right of our people," he insisted. "We
are not ready to say that because we fear
displeasing our neighbors or because we are
frightened that they may attack. That's not the
case," he said. "We say that because at this stage,
the parliament of Kurdistan has decided to remain
within a federal, democratic Iraq."
Kurdish aspirations for autonomy, however, clearly
require Turkish and Iranian acquiescence, or a
persuasive reason for Turkey not to attack. Hence
the desire for the redeployment of some American
forces to Kurdistan. "The presence of American
forces here would be a deterrent to intervention by
the neighboring countries," Mr. Barzani says, with
characteristic bluntness.
That is unlikely anytime soon, say officials in
Washington. How would the presence of American
forces in what one official called a "landlocked
aircraft carrier" help prevent the emergence of an
Islamist entity in Iraq's Sunni-dominated center or
deter Iranian control of the Shiite south? Moreover,
as President Bush noted last week, dismissing
proposals to carve Iraq into three virtually
autonomous regions as destabilizing, such a division
of Iraq would exacerbate Sunni-on-Sunni and
Sunni-on-Shiite tensions. "The Kurds will then
create problems for Turkey and Syria," President
Bush said.
On the contrary, Mr. Barzani insists, Kurdistan
seeks good relations "with all its neighbors."
Indeed, Turkish-Kurdish and Kurdish-Iranian talks
have been ongoing, diplomats say. As for Baghdad,
Mr. Barzani adds, no one has tried harder to keep
Iraq from splitting apart than the Kurds. "We worked
hard with the Sunni community to bring them into the
process," he says, "and also to establish Iraq's
governing council, the interim and transitional
government, and the drafting of the constitution. We
played a leading role in the success of the
process." But he was clearly annoyed by a slight:
the fact that the congressionally created Iraq Study
Group, headed by former Republican Secretary of
State James Baker and Democratic co-chairman Lee
Hamilton, which is weighing policy alternatives for
Iraq, has not traveled to Kurdistan--the only
successful region of postwar Iraq--to consult with
him. "It's a huge failing in their deliberations,"
he says. "We remain willing and ready to help
whenever our assistance is needed."
Mr. Barzani is not shy about offering advice to
Washington. The U.S. needs to revise its policies
because "the existing strategy is not effective," he
says. American forces could be reduced--perhaps by
half--he said, but only when Iraqi forces are ready
to restore order. But that will not happen, he
warns, until the U.S. permits the Iraqi government
to rid itself of the "terrorists, chauvinists and
extremists" in its ranks who condone and "openly
incite the violence on TV" that is destroying what
remains of the capital and the country. He refuses
to name names. But other Kurds point to such figures
as Salah Mutlaq, an extremist Sunni leader, and
aides to Moqtada al-Sadr, who heads a radical Shia
militia.
"You have a different culture; you're a different
people," Mr. Barzani said. "With America's mentality
and approach and regulations, we cannot win like
this. There must be decisive action so the
government can enforce the law and restore its
prestige." This Barzani, confident and candid, is
different from the reticent figure I first
interviewed 15 years ago in his mountain fastness of
Barzan. Although plainspoken, "Kak Massoud"--a
respectful but affectionate "Mister" in Kurdish--was
reluctant then to offer an American journalist a
frank assessment of his frustrations and
aspirations. Not so the man who has evolved into
"President Barzani" of Kurdistan, who, based on an
informal power-sharing agreement with his rival,
President Talibani of Iraq, is determined to seize
this historic opportunity to advance his people's
interests.
Just as "Kak" has become "president," the Kurds have
gone from resistance to nation-building, with all
the challenges such a transformation implies. Mr.
Barzani has complained that while he and his Pesh
Merga knew how to fight, it was "easier to destroy
two dams than to build one power plant." Kurdistan
is changing, in substance as well as style. The
capital is no longer called Erbil (the Arabic), but
"Howler," its Kurdish name. While Mr. Barzani, age
60, still wears the pantaloon, cummerbund, tight
jacket and twirled turban favored by traditional
Kurds, Western-style business suits--expensive
labels, at that--are favored by Nechervan Barzani,
his nephew and the energetic 40-year-old prime
minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Gone are the refugee tents--except for the thousands
of Sunni Arab refugees from Baghdad, who, along with
some 7,000 Christian families, have migrated here
for safety. Temporary structures are being replaced
by new brick and cement houses and apartment
buildings--among them many lavish "castles," as the
Kurds call these houses nestled in the hills
surrounding Erbil. Expensive glass office buildings
are springing up throughout the region. Apartments
are priced at between $100,000 and
$200,000--prohibitively expensive; and yet several
of these are sold out.
"Kurds have money," Prime Minister Nechervan Barzani
told me. "But until recently, they lacked the
confidence to invest." If the junior Mr. Barzani is
correct, Kurdistan is literally exploding with
confidence and new projects befitting its ambitions:
Almost $2 billion in Turkish trade and
investment--the result, partly, of his outreach to
Ankara--is financing the construction the Middle
East's largest new conference center, a new
international airport, hotels, parks, bridges,
tunnels, overpasses, a refinery and an electrical
plant. The Kurdistan Development Council is even
advertising Kurdistan as a tourist destination.
There are over 70 direct flights a week to the
region's two airports from the Middle East and
Europe. But Kurdistan's infrastructure is still
woefully antiquated, a legacy of Saddam's privation
and the ruinous civil war between the clans of Mr.
Barzani and Mr. Talabani from 1994 to 1998. Most
cities still provide only two to three hours of
electricity a day. The rest comes from private
generators, which the poor can ill afford.
Last spring, public resentment at the lack of
services erupted among the frustrated residents of
half a dozen Kurdish towns. Consider Halabja, which
became instantly infamous in 1988 when Saddam's
forces dropped nerve gas there, killing 5,000. In
March, its residents trashed the expensive monument
erected to commemorate their annihilation, setting
the structure on fire and stripping the black marble
slabs on which the names of gas attack victims had
been etched in gold. On my visit last week, two Pesh
Merga were playing "dama," a Kurdish version of
chess, with pieces of the marble that had been torn
off the wall.
Kurds are now restless after so many years of
deprivation, and their expectations are high, Mr.
Barzani agreed: "My main objective is to build
constitutional institutions in this country, to see
a Kurdistan 10 years from now in which each person
is safe and free to have his own ideas." He and
other government officials were determined to "put
the Kurdish house in order," which means continuing
to encourage the effort by Nechervan Barzani to join
supporters from his and Mr. Talibani's group into
one efficient administration. Although grumbling
about corruption and nepotism disturbs him, security
and political solidarity at home must come first.
There is, of course, the explosive question of oil.
While Mr. Barzani is willing to share revenues with
Baghdad, the principle of control is vital to
Kurdistan if it is to have an independent revenue
stream. This issue, and a referendum next year on
who should control the oil-rich city of Kirkuk--which
the Kurds claim as their historic capital and whose
residents approved a list of Kurdish candidates for
Iraq's parliament last year--are red lines for the
Kurdish government. Mr. Barzani is confident that
these questions can be resolved through negotiations
with Baghdad. But if they cannot, or if the fighting
that has gripped much of Iraq escalates beyond the
control of American and Iraqi forces, at least the
Kurds will not be blamed for the dissolution or
partition of Iraq. "Other people will be
responsible, not us," he says. "We will never become
the cause of the partition of Iraq."
As Mr. Barzani carefully stresses his devotion to
Iraqiness--all the while promoting a political and
economic agenda that would reinforce Kurdish
exceptionalism--Americans struggle for an elusive
solution to the violence and ethnic strife that
abounds. Mr. Barzani wishes the U.S. success, he
says, because so much depends on George Bush's
determination not to "cut and run." His "courageous
decision to liberate Iraq will not be undermined by
the mistakes made after that liberation," Mr.
Barzani says, although he does resort to an American
cliché: "If there are people who think the solution
lies in leaving this unfinished, just like Vietnam,
that would be a major disaster."
But having been both saved and betrayed by previous
American governments, he knows the risks of tying
Kurdish fortunes too closely to an administration
facing public disenchantment with its Iraq policies.
"In building our new federal democratic country, our
interests have not contradicted each other," he says
cautiously. "They are aligned. But before I trust
the United States or other people, I trust my own
people."
Ms. Miller, a former New York Times reporter, is a
writer in New York.
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