For much of the past century, the Kurds have rebelled against their respective rulers only to be brutally crushed each time. The 21st century is proving less cruel. More than two decades of upheaval unleashed by Iraq’s ill-fated invasion of Kuwait and accelerated by the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the Arab Spring, has weakened regional states’ authority over their own borders and allowed the Kurds to begin to shape their own destiny. And no more so than for Iraq’s four million-plus Kurds, whose leaders say independence is no longer a question of “if” but “when.”
But it is the “how” part that will prove critical when determining whether a Kurdish state carved out of Iraq can truly bolster regional stability, as the Kurds argue, or will only fuel the conflict engulfing the Middle East. The former requires striking compromises with Baghdad over new borders and oil resources, and just as importantly, convincing Turkey and Iran that separatist feelings among their respective Kurdish minorities will not be stoked.
The most immediate challenge, though, is the tanking economy. Like the rest of Iraq, the Kurdistan region relies almost exclusively on oil revenues. When global prices collapsed, the Iraqi Kurds’ finances did as well, just as the costs of the war effort and caring for over 1.5 million internally displaced Iraqis and Syrian refugees fleeing the Islamic State (ISIS) kicked in.
Government employees, including the Peshmerga fighters, have seen their salaries either slashed or unpaid for months. Massive corruption and intolerance of dissent has fed public fury against the ruling elites. This erupted in deadly riots last year. Wealthy friends tell me they now desist from “buying too much” when they go grocery shopping out of “shame” and “fear.” A new reform program intended to win international creditor confidence has yet to make a dent. Natural gas, which is set to supplant oil as the main cash winner, is hard and expensive to extract.
The biggest challenge of all is the internecine feuding that has allowed regional powers to play one group of Kurds off against the other. This has taken obscene turns, as when Massoud Barzani, President of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), invited in Saddam’s troops during the mid-1990s to help him defeat his political rivals.
Today Barzani is embroiled in a fresh row over the term and powers of his rule, which expired last August.
In March, during a meeting at his hilltop redoubt overlooking the KRG capital of Erbil, Barzani acknowledged that graft was a big issue and called on prosecutors to bring crooked officials to justice, “including myself if need be.” But “forced co-existence” with Baghdad was “not working” despite the Kurds best efforts. Iraq had not honored its commitments, denying the Kurds their share of budget revenues since 2014 and failing to defend them when ISIS jihadists came within striking distance of Erbil the same year. A referendum on independence would be held before the U.S. elections, perhaps in October, he said. Some Kurds believe that independence may be declared as early as next year. And when it is, Barzani pledges he will step down as president. Kurdistan will not be the “Barzanistan” many claim.
The Iraqi Kurds have worked hard for independence. Since 1991, when the U.S.-led coalition in the First Gulf War was shamed by the international media into declaring a no-fly zone over northern Iraq to defend the Kurds against further attacks from Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi Kurds have been building the institutions of a functioning state. They have their own parliament, army, and universities. The new Iraqi constitution drawn up in 2005 in the wake of the U.S. occupation formalized their autonomy.
Up until January 2014, the Iraqi Kurdish economy was booming, thanks to Iraq’s oil revenues and a change in relations with Turkey, which has allowed the Kurds to export their oil independently of Baghdad through a pipeline that runs to Turkish loading terminals on the Mediterranean. While much of Iraq continues to be wracked by sectarian violence, Iraqi Kurdistan is attracting a steady trickle of tourists, mostly Arabs.
Paradoxically, the ISIS incursion into Iraq gave the Kurds a further boost when Iraqi forces abandoned many of the so-called “disputed territories” – including the oil rich province of Kirkuk – and the Kurds moved in. The fate of these areas was to have been decided in a referendum that has yet to be held. Backed by U.S. airstrikes, the Iraqi Kurds are defending these territories from the jihadists and are unlikely to let them go.
Few would deny that the weight of history is on the Iraqi Kurds’ side. They have endured far greater horrors than any of their brethren across the borders: over 100,000 Kurds were murdered during Saddam Hussein’s notorious Anfal campaign. In 1989 some 5,000 of them were gassed to death in the town of Halabja in a single day.
The Iraqi Kurds are mind-bogglingly resilient—and savvy lobbyists. They have cultivated western journalists and won bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress, where legislation authorizing the Obama Administration to arm the Kurds directly, rather than through Baghdad, was overturned by a whisker. Last month, the Pentagon agreed to give $415 million in assistance to Kurdish Peshmerga forces to help in their battle against ISIS.
How would the United States respond if the Kurds declared independence? Most Kurdish leaders reckon that faced with a fait accompli, Washington will acquiesce. The Iraqi Kurds will also need the backing of least one regional power – either Turkey or Iran – to assure their land-locked state’s survival. Renewed fighting between Turkey and its own Kurdish rebels has hardened public attitudes and rekindled anti-Kurdish feelings in Turkey. The window for Turkish support is narrowing fast. But Iraq’s Kurds seem determined to make the leap for independence this time, no matter the price.
