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Article Excerpt
For those interested in ensuring Iraq's stability and territorial integrity, the relationship between Arabs and Kurds is now of paramount importance. Indeed, it is a difficult task to identify any single problem over the forthcoming year that is not influenced in some way by the relationship between Baghdad and Erbil, the seat of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). (1) To consider but a few: the negotiations over a much-needed Hydrocarbons Law remain deadlocked; the constitutional-reform process is moribund; the Iraqi government's questioning of the legal status of the Kurdistan Army (the peshmerga) is matched by the KRG's refusal to accept the legitimization of militias (the isnad) proposed by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki; and an immense swath of territory is claimed by both the KRG and the Iraqi government, including the geopolitically valuable province of Kirkuk. Even fundamental questions concerning the future of Iraq itself, particularly whether it will be truly federal or federal in name only, remain unresolved. Each one of these issues constitutes a significant challenge, and each requires concessions to be made in an environment that is far from conducive to compromise and consensus. Rather, the relationship between Baghdad and Erbil is characterized by suspicion, animosity and brinkmanship.
This paper takes stock of the Kurdish-Arab relationship in Iraq and seeks to ascertain why it deteriorated so markedly from mid-2007 to early 2009. We also aim to provide a corrective to analyses of Iraqi politics which tend to view the Kurds as, if not quite marginal, at least secondary players in a greater game that focuses on the resurrection of a unified sense of secular Iraqi nationalism built around a distinctly Arab narrative. The debate about the resurrection of Iraqi nationalism is not the core focus of our analysis, although we would argue that it is a far more fickle and fragmented force than many of its exponents suggest. Rather, our analysis presents the Kurdish-Arab divide as being one of, if not the, principal challenges facing Iraq and interested members of the international community into 2009. Put simply, if the management of this division is successful and results in a durable set of political compromises, then Iraq will survive and may even evolve into a sustainable democracy. If, however, the divide worsens, or if there is an attempt by Baghdad to impose a "solution" on Erbil--which would be followed by a violent reaction--then the fragile political consensus that underpins Iraq's nascent political order will unravel in short order, and the very territorial integrity of Iraq will be threatened.
THE THREAT TO THE STATE
The relationship between the Kurds and Baghdad is not only critical to Iraq's stability, it is vital to the very survival of the Iraq state. This fact is acknowledged only rarely by commentators. More commonly, the Kurds are presented as being significantly constrained by domestic and regional pressures. In the domestic setting, the Kurds, while often described as locally powerful, are still largely considered a minority within the state, and as such increasingly overshadowed by the rising tide of Iraqi nationalist fevor. Regionally, their geopolitical circumstances are cited regularly as evidence that their neighbors (especially Turkey and Iran) will oppose any further consolidation of the Kurdistan region in order to prevent the occurrence of any similar development within their own boundaries.
The logical conclusion of these arguments is that the Kurdish issue in Iraq, while important, does not threaten Iraq's continued existence as gravely as, for example, the sectarian Sunni-Shiite conflict. Recent evidence suggests that this view is distinctly counterfactual. Even at the height of the most brutal moments of the Sunni-Shiite conflict following the destruction of the Askariyya Shrine in Samarra in January 2006, the political system of the post-2005 state and the overall activities of the government were not threatened because the principal power holders in the government and the Council of Representatives--including the Kurdish and Shiite blocs--continued their work and maintained their alliances. Now, however, disputes between the Kurds and their partners in Baghdad threaten the stability of the state at a far deeper political level.
Two opposing strategies have now emerged that map very neatly and very dangerously onto the Arab-Kurdish divide. Among Arab Sunnis and Turkmens, in addition to the Shiites who are not affiliated with the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq or ISIC (those gathering around Maliki and the Sadrists), there is a desire to increase the power of the government of Iraq vis-a-vis the "regions," whether extant (as in the case of the Kurdistan Region) or planned (as in the case of the possible Region of Basra). Leading this strategy is Prime Minister al-Maliki himself, who has, particularly since mid-2008, attempted to project himself as a defender of the territorial integrity of Iraq willing to take difficult actions. (2)
Opposing this strategy is an alliance of the Kurdish parties and ISCI. For them, the implementation of the constitution of 2005 is non-negotiable, as is the established allocation of powers between the federal government and the regions. For the Kurds, this mandates implementation of the constitutional provision that determines the future status of Kirkuk and other disputed territories (Article 140) and the enforcement of articles that prohibit the formation of private militias (namely, Article 9). For ISCI, Maliki's attempts to generate an Iraqi nationalist support base (comprising Sadrists and Arab Sunnis) that may challenge its own political position of prominence among the Shiite population has turned him from pliant puppet into a dangerous threat. This struggle is not particularly "ethnic," and certainly not "sectarian," in nature. It pits "centralists" against "regionalists" in a defining struggle to determine how power is to be structured in Iraq.
This struggle is in danger of evolving from political rhetoric to open military conflict. Throughout the second half of 2008, Maliki and Massoud Barzani (the president of the Kurdistan Region) were locked in a vitriolic war of words that very nearly saw the outbreak of hostilities between Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and Kurdistan Army units in the disputed town of Khanaqin in Diyala province, while the ISCI's Badr Army remains poised to counter any moves...
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