I see as January 30th approaches the
body count in Iraq steadily climbs higher than Mohammed with Gabriel on his final earthly day. Meanwhile less sanguine, but terribly ominous events in Iraq continue to unfold un-observed or understood by many, and I am growing uneasy. Iraqi Kurdistan grows restive as her neighbors and the US maneouver to assure that the Kurds don't gain too much power, and don't truly achieve independence.
From the perspective of the Kurds in Iraq themselves:
London
KurdishMedia.com 12 January 2005: Arif Tayifur, a high ranking Kurdish party official, is critical of the role of Britain and the US in Iraq and in Kurdistan, reported Peyamner.com on Wednesday.
"Britain has been the main factor for Kurds not gaining their rights. This has been the policy right from the 1920s up to now. Today, the Americas are moving in accordance with the British plans and programmes. They take the Arab side and ignore Kurds," Tayifour told Peyamner.com.
More after the bump.
The Kurds themselves have a saying: "The Mountain is the Kurds' only friend."
More from that "high ranking" Kurdish official,
Tayifur stated that what the Americans are doing in [southern] Kurdistan is an old British plan, which amounts to dividing Kurdistan, not allowing Kirkuk, Shikhan, Jangar, Khanaqeen and other areas to be amalgamated back to Kurdistan.
snip
Working with them is really difficult. We must not expect to get anything from them [Arabs]. Kurds must be united with united stand and with one policy, and they must move forward courageously," Tayifur added.
"The US officials showed willingness to cooperate in the fight against the PKK," he said.
Today, the US is saying they won't attack the PKK anytime soon, but...
ANKARA, Jan. 11
Xinhuanet -- Turkey and Iraq on Tuesday agreed tojointly fight against the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK).A joint statement issued after a tripartite meeting of Turkish, Iraqi and US officials on Iraq's security said Turkey and Iraq have come to an agreement on co-fighting the terrorist organization. "The US officials welcomed the agreement between Turkey and Iraqon the fight against the PKK," said Turkey's Iraq Special Representative Ambassador Osman Koruturk, who read out the statement after the five-hour meeting.
"The US officials showed willingness to cooperate in the fight against the PKK," he said.
It is instructive to note that the impeccably knowledgeable Juan Cole said last week, that "In my view, the threat of a serious conflict between the Kurdish paramilitary and the US is imminent."
The 5000 PKK outlaws from Turkey hiding out in Iraqi Kurdistan are problematic. Though the Kurds recognize their citizenship in greater Kurdistan, nobody else does:
The possibility that the two political parties formed by the PKK might participate in the Iraqi elections was also raised during the meeting. Ankara conveyed its demand that these parties be excluded from the elections. Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Hamid Al-Bayati, the head of Iraqi delegation, responded positively to the demand: "They want to participate illegally in the elections, this cannot be accepted."
Link
Assuming the Kurds will tolerate the "elimination" of the PKK threat to Turkey (you'll get better odds betting Sistani will be eating ham and singing hymns on Easter], there are two more outstanding problems with the Kurds peacefully accepting a minor role in the new Federal Iraq.
The Kurds' desire for autonomy promises to tear at the unity of the new Iraq that the election planned for late January is supposed to help build. The voters are to choose a legislature to write a constitution. But some Iraqi leaders have already expressed resentment at the most important safeguard of Kurdish independence: the power to veto the new constitution.
snip
Kurdish officials say they will take part in the writing of the constitution on the assumption that if they do not like what emerges, they have a veto. According to the existing temporary constitution, the public referendum on the charter will be defeated if two-thirds of voters in three provinces (the Kurdish-dominated region of northern Iraq has three) reject it.
But other Iraqi leaders have in the past suggested that the temporary constitution no longer will be operative after the January election, depriving Kurds of their veto power.
Link
No veto, no Iraqi Kurdistan. At least not for long after the election.
But there is another "Kurdish Problem," the exclusion of oil rich Kirkuk from Iraqi Kurdistan. Follow this Link for a recent analysis
The meeting did little to alter the Kurdish position however. Barzani told Iraqi National Assembly speaker Fu'ad Ma'sum, deputy speaker Hamid Majid Musa, and assembly member Muhammad Baqir al-Ulum that "holding municipal elections [in Kirkuk] would set in place the reality of Arabization policies and other [policies] of the Ba'athist regime," Irbil's "Khabat" reported on 5 January. "If elections are to be held there then the people of Kurdistan
would make their stance clear," he added.
Meanwhile, National Security Adviser Muwaffaq al-Rubay'i reportedly took a stand in support of Kurdish aspirations on the city, purportedly telling KurdSat television that he believes Kirkuk is part of the Kurdistan region, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) website reported on 3 January
What does "make their stance clear" mean exactly?
For now Kurdish officials appear unwilling to coexist on anything but their own terms, which means bolstering their autonomy and preventing outside interference, whether from Baghdad or another country.
Hamid Afandi, the minister of pesh merga for the Kurdish regional government based in Irbil, outlined one possible strategy: Take control of Kirkuk the disputed oil city north of Baghdad, where Kurds are even now wresting land from the Arabs who were settled there by Saddam Hussein grab a far larger share of Kirkuk's oil revenue than the Kurds now get and use that to triple the size of the pesh merga force.
We are ready to fight against all forces to control Kirkuk," Afandi said. "Our share is very little. We'll try to take a larger share."
Link