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Kurds in Iraq feel their leverage decline
1.2.2008
By Alissa J. Rubin
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Kurds' Power Wanes as Arab Anger Rises
February 1, 2008
As a minority group in Iraq, the Kurds have enjoyed
disproportionate influence in the country's politics
since the removal of Saddam Hussein in 2003. But now
their leverage appears to be declining, as tensions
rise with Iraqi Arabs, raising the specter of
another fissure alongside the sectarian divide
between Sunnis and Shiites.
The Kurds, who are mostly Sunni but NOT Arab, have
steadfastly backed the government, most recently
helping to keep it afloat when Prime Minister Nuri
Kamal al-Maliki lacked support from much of the
Parliament.
With their political acumen, close ties to the
Americans and considerable technical competence at
running government agencies, the Kurds cemented a
position of enormous strength. |
Sulaimaniya, Kurdistan's cultural capital and other
parts of the Kurdish area of 'northern Iraq' have
remained largely peaceful as well as affluent. |
This allowed them to all
but dictate terms in the Constitution, which gave
them considerable regional autonomy and some
significant rights in oil development.
But now the Kurds are pursuing policies - trying to
seize control of the oil city of Kirkuk and to gain
a more advantageous division of national revenues -
that are antagonizing the other factions,www.ekurd.net
uniting most Sunnis and
many Shiites within Maliki's government in
opposition to the Kurdish demands.
One major Shiite group, the Islamic Supreme Council
of Iraq, has not publicly taken sides, but powerful
individuals within the party have been openly
critical of the Kurds. Among them are leading
members of Parliament and Hussein al-Shahristani,
the oil minister, who has declared Kurdish oil
contracts with foreign firms illegal.
"They are no longer the egg in the balance," said
Humam Hamoodi, the head of the international
committee in the Parliament and a leading Shiite
lawmaker from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq.
The phrase is an old Arabic proverb that refers to
the item that tips the scale. "The Kurds are not so
powerful," he said.
Independent analysts largely back that claim.
"There's a strong feeling that the Kurds have
overreached," said Joost Hiltermann, a senior
analyst for the Middle East at the International
Crisis Group who is based in Istanbul but tracks
events in Iraq closely.
"The Kurds had their eye on independence in the long
term and they wanted to use the current window to
increase the territory they hold and the powers they
exercise within the territory," he added. "They've
done well on the powers, but not so well on the
territory. They now face real restrictions."
The jousting threatens to undermine much of what the
Kurds have achieved in political influence and
supercede, temporarily, at least, the far deeper and
bloodier divide between Sunnis and Shiites.
And by helping unite Sunnis and Shiites, the Kurds'
overreaching has strengthened the hand of Maliki,
despite widespread doubts about his ability to
govern effectively. The tensions could even persuade
the central government to postpone further a
much-delayed referendum on Kirkuk,www.ekurd.net
something Kurdish
leaders have worked hard on to assure themselves a
victory (to the point of urging Kurds to move there
so they would win any vote).
"The government got a lot of support when they stood
against the exaggerated demands of the Kurds," said
Jaber Habeeb, an independent Shiite member of
Parliament who is also a political science professor
at Baghdad University. But to capitalize on this
support, which is almost certain to be temporary,
since Shiites and Sunnis remain at odds, the
government must move quickly to improve electricity,
water and other basic services, he said.
For the United States, the diminution in Kurdish
power is part of the larger problem that Iraq's
political groups have yet to forge any common
vision. Increasingly, several parties will come
together to cope with a particular problem but form
no lasting allegiances that can actually govern.
The Kurds, with their pro-American outlook, were a
natural ally. But with the new tensions in their
relations with Iraqi Arabs, the Americans are in the
uncomfortable position of choosing between the two:
the Kurds, whom they have long supported and
protected, and the Iraqi Arabs, whose government the
Americans helped create.
The Kurds have been locked in a decades-long power
struggle with Sunni Arabs, most recently with Saddam
Hussein. That led to the Saddam government's Anfal
campaign, in which about 180,000 Kurds died and
2,000 Kurdish villages were destroyed, according to
Kurdish counts.
Since the United States and its allies created a
no-flight zone over Kurdistan, after the first Gulf
War, the Kurdistan region has become increasingly
affluent. While much of Iraq has been engulfed in
violence since 2003, Kurdistan has been notably
peaceful, with streams of foreign investment and a
building boom in Erbil, the Kurdistan's capital and
one of the largest city. Against that backdrop, the
Kurdish aspiration to include more territory,
including Kirkuk, in its semi-autonomous region
looks greedy to the Arabs.
In a signal of its displeasure, Parliament has
refused to approve a new budget because it awards
the Kurds 17 percent of the total revenues, which
many representatives say is more than their share,
based on population. Since Iraq has not had a census
in decades, it is impossible to know the true size
of the Kurdish population. Some Kurdish leaders say
it could be as high as 23 percent; some Arabs say it
is just 13 percent.
The Kurds are also believed to collect millions of
dollars in customs duties on goods coming into the
country, but they neither send any of the money to
Baghdad nor share accounts of that income, according
to the International Monetary Fund.
Parliament members are also angered that the Kurds
want Baghdad to pay salaries for their militia
force, the peshmerga, from the budget of the
Ministry of Defense. The peshmerga, a force of about
100,000, operates primarily in Kurdistan rather than
serving the country as a whole.
However, the Kurds contend that in the event of an
invasion they would be on the front lines. Such a
scenario seems all too real to the Kurds, since
Turkey threatened to invade to rout the rebel
Kurdistan Workers' Party, which has been using the
Qandil mountains to attack in Turkish territory.
Perhaps most grating for Iraqi Arabs, the Kurds have
refused to back down on oil exploration contracts
that they have signed with a number of foreign
companies, which the Arabs claim is a violation of
Iraqi law. Arabs view the central government as the
only entity empowered to approve contracts, albeit
in consultation with the regions where the oil is
located.
In fact, any revenue from the contracts the Kurds
sign with foreign companies would go into the
country's general coffers, but the fight is over
power and money associated with the oil exploration
deals.
The Kurds argue that the central government has been
dragging its feet on an oil law and that they cannot
afford to further defer oil exploration and
development, said Ros Shawees, a former vice
president of Iraq and point man in Baghdad for
Massoud Barzani, the president of the semiautonomous
Kurdistan Regional Government.
Saddam refused to allow any oil development on
Kurdish soil to ensure that the Kurds would never
gain the financial means to make a play for
independence.
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