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Kurds should make the most of a divided
Baghdad
30.8.2010
By Ranj Alaaldin |
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While
Arab Iraq remains riven with bomb attacks and
political instability, the Kurds should take some
bold decisions.
August 30, 2010
Arab Iraq is getting weaker. Baghdad has no
government, no leadership, and continues to be
plagued with devastating bomb attacks and daily
killings. It is almost irreparably divided, the
victim of ideological rifts and a regional proxy
conflict. There is, however, one group who will be
smiling despite all this: Iraq's Kurds.
A weak Baghdad equates with certainty and
unassailable fortune for the Kurdistan region.
History teaches that a damaged Baghdad poses no
armed threat to Kurdistan's borders, while a divided
Baghdad means Kurdistan is left to its own devices
as it maximises its economic and energy resource
potential.
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Ranj Alaaldin is a Middle East political and
security risk analyst based at the London School of
Economics and Political Science. |
It was a similar set of
circumstances that gave the Kurds their best catch
in history: the uncertainty and disorganisation in
Baghdad in 2003 paved the way for the current Iraqi
constitution, one that, thanks to an elite circle of
internationally renowned advisers, gave the Kurds
far-reaching federalism bordering on independence.
Kurdistan's luck has returned. It has been nearly
six months since the elections and Arab Iraq is
still without a government. The Kurds' Arab
counterparts are, therefore, vulnerable, open to
compromise and indeed exploitable. To capitalise on
this opportune moment the Kurds have submitted a
list of 19 requests to potential coalition partners
in Baghdad.
Included in the demands are the implementation of
Article 140 of the constitution (resolution of
Kirkuk and other disputed territories), rights to
sign oil deals with foreign companies and the
financing of the Kurdish peshmerga forces.
Kurdistan also wants to limit the powers of the
prime minister (unlikely ever to be a Kurd), firstly
by making the head of the Iraqi national security
council commander-in-chief of the armed forces and,
secondly, by also giving powers to the president.
The Iraqi presidency is held by a Kurd, Jalal
Talabani, who is also head of the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK). The Kurds want the presidency
again. However, as with other demands,www.ekurd.netthat
is contingent on Arab Iraq remaining unable to
reconcile differences, not least since a Sunni Arab
is widely expected to take the position as a result
of the electoral victory of the Sunni-dominated
Iraqiyah grouping of Ayad Allawi.
Kurdistan may not actually need the presidency
though. The president will no longer have the power
of veto – though the Kurds want to retain it –
making it a largely symbolic position and an
unnecessary inconvenience for the Kurdistan
Democratic Party (KDP) of Massoud Barzani,
Kurdistan's president.
The KDP may instead prefer the collection of extra
ministries it could get in return for the
presidency, ministries that it, and not the PUK,
will be entitled to given its electoral legitimacy
and superior status in the north.
However, Talabani wants the presidency desperately
and is making sure the KDP gets it for him. The PUK
no longer dominates in its former stronghold of
Sulaymaniah after the emergence of opposition party
Change, at least not politically. The PUK is carried
by the KDP. The end of the presidency could,
therefore, mean the end of political life for
Talabani.
Moreover, the PUK is expected to lose the Kurdistan
premiership to the KDP next year. Former premier and
senior KDP official Nechirvan Barzani is expected to
return. In the event that Talabani fails to retain
the presidency and current Kurdish premier Barham
Salih is replaced with Barzani, at a point where the
Iraqi government is formed and running, the PUK
could be left in the embarrassing position of
holding no major post either in Kurdistan or
Baghdad.
Squabbling in Baghdad has also given the Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG) the opportunity to put off
another Change success story in the region.
Provincial elections scheduled for this year have
been postponed, probably at the PUK's bidding since
at the moment elections spell disaster.
There is, however, only so much that Baghdad can do.
Baghdad cannot hide the ongoing problems of
corruption, bureaucracy, transparency and the lack
of political reform in general. And they will not go
away when provincial elections do take place.
Having said this, Barham Salih did recently make the
bold move of ending the $35m-a-month party-political
funding allocated to the PUK and KDP from the KRG
budget. That spells defeat for patronage and,
naturally, has been met with tough counterattacks,
largely within the upper echelons of the PUK (since
the KDP has allowed the PUK to do this for them).
There need to be further brave decisions, though
bold moves are a rarity in Kurdistan. Kirkuk remains
unresolved – an issue the KRG has been too willing
to compromise on despite everything suggesting
Baghdad will never give way on the issue.
That may have once been acceptable. Not any more
though. As the saying goes: fool me once, shame on
you. Fool me twice, shame on me. The time is nigh
for the Kurds to go all-out while the opportunity is
still there. The exhausted excuses of the past are
no longer acceptable.
Ranj Alaaldin is a
Middle East political and security risk analyst
based at the London School of Economics and
Political Science.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
guardian co.uk
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