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Kudos to Iraqi Kurdistan
23.1.2012
By Hussain Abdul-Hussain - Now Lebanon
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Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief
of Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai.
January
23, 2012
In a region consumed by violence, uncertainty and
despair, Iraqi Kurdistan stands out as an oasis of
stability, economic growth and a relatively
acceptable level of political freedom.
Envious of their success, many Arabs have accused
Iraqi Kurds of selling out to America. And while it
is true that the Kurds enjoy excellent ties with
Washington, Arabs should keep in mind that the Kurds
had to break with their painful past in order to
make themselves an indispensible ally for the United
States in the region.
In Kurdish collective memory, America let them down
in 1975 during their fight against Saddam Hussein.
Saddam had reached out to Iran's Shah Reza Pahlavi.
As relations between the two improved, the Shah, and
eventually Washington, abandoned the Iraqi Kurds
while Saddam shut down the operation of Iranian
opposition leader Imam Ruhollah Khomeini in Najaf
and sent him into exile in France.
Today's Kurdish leadership understands that in the
game of nations, there is no place for grudges. As
such, Iraq's Kurds have not only made friends with
America, but have also reached out to historic
enemies like Turkey, where they found a like-minded
government in Ankara that has tailored its foreign
policy to fit its economic interests. Annual trade
between Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey stands at $4
billion and is expected to grow.
Domestically, Iraqi Kurdish rulers succeeded in
transforming their leadership from one based on
patronage networks to one based on winning the
hearts and minds of their constituents through
economic growth and prosperity.
And because prosperity requires good governance, the
Kurdish leadership tapped native talent. Kurdish
graduates from the world's finest colleges were
lured back home, their experience put to government
use.
Some Kurdish officials still channel public funds
into their personal accounts and use the Kurdish
Regional Government (KRG) bureaucracy to reward
their loyalists. But these same leaders have also
kept such corruption to a minimum. They also cut on
red tape and made the Kurdish region's environment
competitively attractive to the world's biggest
investors.
Security, good governance and a percentage of the
revenue of 170,000 oil barrels produced in the
region every day have paid off. Government
expenditure is set to jump from $10 billion this
year to $13 billion in 2013. Back in 2002, the
region’s embryonic government had a budget of only
$100 million.
The economy of the landlocked region has been
growing at a rate of 12 percent, year-on-year.
According to the Financial Times, per capita income
has risen from $375 in 2002 to $5,500 in 2011.
Electricity runs 22 hours a day. In the rest of
Iraq, especially in the similarly oil-rich south,
shortages are so acute that most cities only receive
four hours a day.
Kurdistan's Erbil and Sulaimaniyah have also opened
airports with flights to cities such as Vienna and
Frankfurt and daily services to Istanbul, Dubai and
Amman. In Iraq's predominantly Shia south, airports
have flights mainly to Iranian cities, and service
mostly religious tourism.
While Iraqi Kurdistan is still not the perfect
democracy everyone aspires for, it is certainly a
rising star. In 2009, Nawshirwan Mustafa, a longtime
lieutenant of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, broke
ranks with "Mam Jalal's" Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan and created his own group, Gorran,www.ekurd.net
or “Change.” Mustafa's faction won considerable
seats in the 2009 elections as his bloc emerged as
the leading opposition group inside the Kurdish
parliament. In the Iraqi elections in 2010, Gorran
also won seats, even though it still caucuses with
the bigger Barzani-Talabani bloc.
Showing maturity, the ruling Kurdish duality of
Barzani and Talabani did not try to kill Mustafa or
Gorran, even though his growing popularity came at
the expense of the two, both regionally and
nationally. Instead, the Kurdish establishment
expressed its respect for diversity and free speech.
In September, Iraqi Kurdistan's president, Massoud
Barzani, visited Mustafa for the first time.
Unlike Arab politicians, Kurdish leaders are showing
a sense of purpose, pragmatism and an understanding
that times have changed.
If compared to retrograde and narcissistic leaders
like Iran's Ali Khaminei, Iraq's Nouri Maliki and
Lebanon’s Hassan Nasrallah—who are stuck in their
old ways of killing opponents, employing populist
anti-Western slogans and driving their countries
into the political and economic abyss—Iraqi Kurdish
politicians, despite their unwarranted long tenures,
look like leaders worthy of their people's respect.
Perhaps that's why pillars of the Lebanese oligarchy
have taken their business to Iraqi Kurdistan. After
lawmaker Walid Jumblatt and former President Amin
Gemayel, Samir Geagea made a show in Arbil. Unable
to convince Lebanon's de facto ruler Hassan
Nasrallah of the worthiness of dropping his outdated
anti-Western ideological rhetoric in favor of a
pragmatic one, these Lebanese leaders seem to pin
their hopes on Kurdistan. After all, in politics,
it's never personal. It is only business.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau
Chief of Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai
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