IRAQ: More cracks appear

As the “alliance of the willing” prepares to withdraw from its six year military occupations of Iraq concerns remain regarding the stability of the state they leave behind. Cracks are again appearing in the shaky political amalgam of Iraq’s various Kurdish, Arab and Turkoman ethnic groups.

In the country’s northern “Kurdistan” claims are being made to a range of disputed areas considered by some to be part of the historical Kurdish homeland. All this comes against a backdrop of already high ethnic tensions and desperate U.S. attempts to stabilise Iraq as it prepares for a gradual withdrawal.

Kurdish parliamentarians in the northern city of Irbil have proclaimed several key areas such as oil-rich Kirkuk, Khanaqin and districts around Mosul part of the "historical-geographical entity of Iraqi Kurdistan". This has caused outrage among other political factions in Iraq. Arab members of the Kirkuk provincial council called on national authorities and the "Iraqi people" to "intervene seriously so that everyone knows Kirkuk is a national Iraqi issue and no one can decide on it on their own for their political gains."

According to an Inter Press Service report: “Under former President Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi government expelled large numbers of Kurds and Turkomans from those areas in what is commonly referred to as "Arabisation". The strategic goal was to tilt the demographic balance in favour of the country’s Arab majority in those areas rich with natural resources like oil and gas…… there are deep differences between the federal government in Baghdad and the Kurdish government over their respective powers on oil exploration and foreign policy, as well as territory.”

Here we see the makings of another civil war over the world’s natural resources. Shorn of the oil rich northern region the rest of Iraq will find it very difficult to rebuild a war shattered economy and infrastructure anything like as quickly as it might otherwise do. As a result Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has taken a tough stance toward what he and many in Baghdad see as dangerous Kurdish expansionism. While his Shia-led government has uneasy relations with Sunni Arabs, Maliki is said to be indulging in a classic back the minority move by propping up Sunni Arabs in the north in their disputes with Kurds.

Although officially part of Iraq, the Kurdish government signs oil deals with international firms, establishes diplomatic relations with foreign countries, controls a 100,000 strong army and has forces in all disputed areas.

The war aims of the withdrawing allies – assured access to oil supplies from a politically stable region – may yet not come to fruition.

GT