The Asia Times
June 9, 2004

Middle East

SPEAKING FREELY
Northern Iraq – calm like a bomb
By W Joseph Stroupe

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As negotiations at the United Nations on a new resolution for Iraq
apparently near a close, developments with respect to the Kurds and
north Iraq, where there has been relative calm until now, are looking
more and more ominous. Recently, the People’s Congress of Kurdistan
(the former Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK), announced an abrupt
end to its five-year ceasefire with Turkish forces, warning that it
would soon resort to violent means to achieve its ends.

Within a few days of the announcement, Kurdish forces in
southern Turkey did attack Turkish forces, prompting a violent
response. Additionally, according to a recent Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty report, “Kamis Djabrailov, chairman of the International
Union of Kurdish Public Organizations that represents the Kurdish
minorities in Russia, Kazakhstan, Armenia and other CIS [Commonwealth
of Independent States], told Interfax on 31 May that his organization
approves the announcement three days earlier by the People’s Congress
of Kurdistan that it will end on 1 June its five-year ceasefire in
hostilities with the Turkish armed forces.”

Hence, the regional political, diplomatic and even military
mobilization of Kurdish forces, in an attempt to secure its own
interests as the June 30 date for the handover of sovereignty to
Iraq nears, appears to be under way. In verification of that fact,
on June 7, Masoud Barzani of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and Jalal
Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan threatened to pull out of
the interim government unless the new United Nations Security Council
resolution guarantees Kurdish autonomy and a veto over the direction of
the interim government as promised in the draft interim constitution,
which was very reluctantly signed by the Shi’ite representatives,
but which is something the Shi’ite majority refuses to accept under
any circumstances.

The Kurdish representatives also expressed their bitter disappointment
over the fact that no Kurd was chosen to fill the positions of
either prime minister or president. Hence, in the Kurdish view,
their interests are being severely slighted as the June 30 date
nears. Whether a political and diplomatic compromise can be reached
that satisfies all the parties is not at all assured. The Sunnis and
Shi’ites appear to be mostly content with the look of the new interim
council and with Iraq’s direction, but the Kurds are certainly not
content. They have been marginalized before, by the United States
itself, and intend to take care of their own interests, by violence
if need be. This is indeed ominous.

The pointed Kurdish demands threaten to disrupt the relative
contentment with the transition process, which now exists among the
Sunni and Shi’ite populations, among Iraq’s neighbors and within
the international community at large. In actuality, there is little
sympathy for the cause of the Kurds in Iraq and the surrounding region.

That is especially so in Turkey, Syria and Iran, where Kurdish
groups are viewed as nothing more than destabilizing terrorists,
threatening the national security of the three nations, which have
recently deepened their cooperation in the effort to subdue such
groups. And in Armenia and Azerbaijan, the last thing that is wanted
is for such Kurdish groups to push the region toward violence and
instability in the pursuit of Kurdish autonomy.

An independent Kurdistan is, therefore, anathema to all but the Kurds
themselves. It is the United States which has greatly exacerbated the
current situation by raising Kurdish hopes for an independent Kurdistan
in northern Iraq. Months ago, in the atmosphere of violent insurgency
in Iraq and the approaching handover of sovereignty, the US-drafted
interim constitution significantly raised such Kurdish hopes, giving
them a veto over the direction of any Iraqi interim government,
as well as over the final Iraqi government to be seated in 2005.

Fearful of the influence of Shi’ite religious fundamentalism as the
transition to sovereignty progressed, the administration of President
George W Bush evidently saw the Kurds as an entity it could use to
keep such Shi’ite influence in check, to limit its power in any new
Iraqi regime, so as to prevent the formation of an Iranian-style
theocracy in Iraq. However, as matters are turning out, the most
powerful positions being filled in the interim government are occupied
by mostly secular Sunnis and Shi’ites.

So, the United States now has little use for the Kurds, who see clearly
that once again they are being abandoned by the US. All the parties see
the Kurds, therefore, as possible spoilers of the solution currently
being put together under UN auspices. Hence, little sympathy exists
for them. Realizing this fact, the Kurds are already resorting to
threats and violence in an effort to get a satisfactory hearing. By
its short-sighted, ad hoc approach to Iraq’s complicated situation,
first using the Kurds and then casting them aside, the United States
may have sealed both its own and Iraq’s fate.

There appears little hope that the Kurdish demands can be sufficiently
taken into consideration without at the same time losing the already
cautious and tentative support of the Sunnis and Shi’ites. And
there also appears little hope that the Kurds will suddenly satisfy
themselves with what the other two factions are comfortable in giving
them. Hence, whether the Kurds might temporarily tone down their
demands for the time being, or whether they more likely will ratchet
up their demands as the UN negotiations proceed and the June 30 date
nears, one thing that appears certain is that they will hold a major
key to how events proceed in Iraq.

The United States has let loose a Kurdish “monster”, not only on
Iraq itself, but also on the region at large, a “monster” which
cannot easily be put back into the box. If a diplomatic solution
cannot be crafted that satisfies all of Iraq’s three factions, and
it is doubtful that one can, then a great deal of military muscle
will be needed in the entire region to keep the disenfranchised Kurds
“in check”. And that muscle will have to come increasingly into play
in northern Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

In the end, the handover of sovereignty on June 30 may not change
anything, except that it may well accelerate Iraq’s descent into
sectarian violence, with Turkey and Syria cooperating militarily
to secure their interests in northern Iraq by taking control of
that region, and the southern regions of Iraq moving significantly
closer into cooperation with Iran, with the US military caught in
the middle. The relative calmness of northern Iraq is very likely
to be much like the calmness of a large bomb – its calmness very
deceptively masks the huge explosion which is likely imminent.