For a political solution

US Secretary of State John Kerry paid unannounced visits to Baghdad and Erbil this week with the aim of pleading with Iraqi Arab and Kurdish politicians to adopt a national approach to the crisis in the country.

In Baghdad, he told dominant Shiites that they had to stop discriminating against Sunnis and excluding them from positions in the army and civil service.

In Erbil, he told the Kurds that they should not remain distant from the central government which has halted transfers of funds for the Kurdish region’s budget due to a dispute over the exploitation of oil resources in this region.

While Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki promised that a new, “inclusive”, government would be formed by July 1, it is not clear whether Kerry was able to defuse tensions between Baghdad and Erbil, under strain for many months on the oil issue.

Relations have become even more conflicted since Kurdish peshmerga fighters seized control of the oil hub of Kirkuk, on June 12, after Iraqi troops retreated in the face of an offensive against the government mounted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and its Sunni allies.

The Kurdish action amounted to a flagrant violation of the Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution and could have serious repercussions for both Iraqi Arabs and Kurds if and when the ongoing crisis comes to an end.

The Kurds have for decades claimed Kirkuk and its oil fields, located just outside their autonomous region, as part of their historical homeland.

Kurdish region President Massoud Barzani indicated that the Kurds will cling to Kirkuk when he said to Kerry: “With these chances we are facing a new reality and a new Iraq.”

If the Kurds refuse to relinquish Kirkuk, revenues from its oil fields could be greater than Kurdish allocations from the Iraqi state budget. Financial independence could make this region totally free of Baghdad’s control and permit the Kurds to secede from Iraq. This would constitute a casus belli for Baghdad.

To further complicate relations between Baghdad and Erbil, the first crude oil pumped through the new pipeline from Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region to Turkey’s port of Ceyhan was shipped to Israel.

Israel has not only been long a strong supporter of the Iraqi Kurds’ drive for autonomy or independence for a long time, it also provided the Kurds with intelligence and military aid while they were fighting Arab nationalist regimes.

Israel’s aim was to weaken its Arab antagonists by joining non-Arab regional actors, including Iraqi Kurds, Turkey and Iran under the pro-Western, pro-Israeli shah.

Good relations between the Kurds and Jews residing in Kurdish majority areas in Iraq provided a basis for cooperation between Iraqi Kurds, particularly of the ruling Barzani clan, and Israel.

Iraqi Kurdish Jews who migrated to Israel and now number 40,000 to 50,000 also tried to promote good relations.

Israel stepped up operations in the Iraqi Kurdish region following the 1991 US proclamation of a no-fly zone and “safe haven” for the Kurds.

Israeli-Kurdish military cooperation peaked after the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq and the emergence of the Kurdish autonomous region in three Kurdish-majority states.

In 2004, famed US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported in The New Yorker that Israeli military and intelligence agents were training Kurdish fighters and agents with the aim of building up Kurdish forces in Iraq, Syria and Iran, but not in Turkey, a non-Arab state assiduously courted by Israel.

The forces of the Iraqi Kurdish region, the peshmerga, are the strongest of the country’s many militias. The peshmerga are said to have 270,000-375,000 well-trained veteran fighters, while the main Shiite and Sunni militias only a few thousand ragtag fighters.

This situation changed when ISIL began operations in Iraq early this year and mounted its current offensive in Iraq’s Anbar, Salaheddin, Nineveh and Diyala provinces, occupying Mosul, Tikrit and a number of strategic towns and villages along the Syrian border.

ISIL provided leadership and drive for Sunni militias and tribal fighters who had, largely, remained fragmented and dormant.

So far, peshmerga units have remained on the sidelines, providing only logistical aid for the Shiite fundamentalist government in Baghdad and refusing to engage with ISIL, except were it challenges Kurdish hegemony.

Instead of joining battle with the Iraqi army against ISIL and its allies, Kurdish units made their landgrab, creating a new source of instability in Iraq.

Since 2003, the Kurdish region has enjoyed unprecedented stability and prosperity. The Kurds have created a Westernised, secular region with a free market economy that is booming.

Vast new housing projects are going up in Erbil, Dohuk and Suleimaniyah. Restaurants and shops are flourishing.

However, stability and security could come to an end if radical Sunni fighters and preachers infiltrate the 1,000-kilometre long border between the Kurdish region and Iraq. 

The Kurds have their own ultraorthodox salafists and discontented youth.

While the Kurds hold Kirkuk and its oil fields for the time being, Iraqi Arabs and Turkmen, who have just as strong a claim to the area as the Kurds, are prepared to fight and die for Kirkuk and its wealth.

A Kurdish state independent of Baghdad would also be opposed by Turkey, Syria and Iran.

Ankara fears its Kurds would demand self-determination, leading to a merger of southeastern Turkey with the Kurdish region of Iraq.

Damascus is concerned that the Kurds in Syria’s northeast would do the same while Tehran has the similar concerns about Iranian Kurds living near the Iraqi border.

Therefore, over the long term, it could be better for Iraq’s Kurds to come to terms with Baghdad if an “inclusive” government is formed and the country’s Sunnis declare themselves satisfied with this government.

This could lead to some tribal and former-Baathist elements to pull out of the insurgency led by ISIS.

Such a government will have to be established by a political figure other than Maliki, whose policies over the past eight years have created the current crisis.

The new prime minister should, preferably, not be from any of the Shiite fundamentalist parties that have as a whole alienated the Sunnis.

Now that they have shown that they can fight back against Shiite exclusion and discrimination, the Sunnis should opt for a political rather than a military solution.