Heading Toward an (Inevitable) War in Kirkuk
August 20, 06
Washington -- It is almost like a nightmare. You are being drawn toward the edge of a ravine, you know that you are going to plunge down soon, you struggle and try to move back, right or left, but you can't, you are being pushed forward. You feel that you can't evade the inevitable, that shortly you will go down. And you go down.
It is probably the story of northern Iraq's multiethnic and oil-rich area of Kirkuk.
Thousands of Kurdish fighters, Washington's closest allies in the Iraq war, one morning in April 2003 flocked onto the streets of Kirkuk deserted by Saddam Hussein's forces, accompanied by a handful of U.S. paratroopers. This marked the beginning of their effective takeover of the area.
Kurds, Turkmen, mostly Sunni Arabs and Christians have been the inhabitants of Kirkuk which sits on nearly 40 percent of Iraq's proven oil fields.
During a forced Arabization campaign during Saddam's rule, many Kurds and some Turkmen were forced out of Kirkuk and replaced by Sunni Arabs. But in a reverse exodus of more than 100,000 Kurds into the area, together with the departure of perhaps tens of thousands of Arabs, the region's demographic structure has been heavily altered in favor of the Kurds since mid-2003.
This was part of a medium-term Kurdish plan to gain the area's control, eventually to make Kirkuk the capital of a widely autonomous Kurdish region, and later, hopefully, an independent Kurdistan.
And arguably, there is some kind of a legal framework to that end: Largely drawn up by the Kurds and the Shiite SCIRI party, an article in Iraq's Constitution endorsed last year calls for a local referendum to decide on Kirkuk's fate. In other words, if the Kurds obtain a simple majority, Kirkuk and its oil will go to Kurdistan, at least in theory. With their migration-backed majority, the Kurds certainly would win the referendum.
But there are several roadblocks: Iraq's Sunni Arabs, Turkmens and Shiite parties with the exception of SCIRI -- meaning maverick Moqtada al Sadr's Mehdi army, current Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Dawa Party, and some others -- are all against an ultimate Kurdish takeover.
Also there are inherent problems over the referendum. Amid all the opposition to the census idea by others, the central government most probably will decline to sponsor the referendum. Then who will hold the census Unilaterally the Kurds themselves
And Turkey, which staunchly is against the creation of an independent Kurdistan with Kirkuk its capital, repeatedly has warned against the ambitious Kurdish plan. To a lesser extent, Iran and Syria, that also have large Kurdish populations, have raised objections, too.
But the United States, still a key force in Iraq despite a mounting probability of a Shiite-Sunni civil war in Baghdad and other central areas, insistently has been keeping a hands-off policy about what will happen to Kirkuk, although U.S. military officials have raised some concerns over rising ethnic violence.
Earlier this month Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül once again warned that the planned referendum would not resolve the Kirkuk dispute and called for a political process to seek a consensus among all ethnic and sectarian groups.
But Turkey's latest call again found deaf ears, with the Kurds continuing to carry out their plans to consolidate their power and Washington retaining its aloof position.
This is an issue for the Iraqi people to decide. There's a process in the Iraqi Constitution that will allow them to do so, U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said on Aug. 11, referring to the planned referendum.
Meanwhile, Iraq's Kurdish regional government this month published a draft version of a law giving itself the right to control petroleum operations in its territory and in the disputed province of Kirkuk. A memorandum attached to the draft provided by the Kurdish regional government said a final version would be presented to the Kurdish Parliament in September.
Kirkuk war looming:
If the United States continues with its stand-off position, the most likely outcome will be a civil war, said Joost Hiltermann, Iraq Project director for the International Crisis Group (ICG), said last week here. He said outside intervention also was likely.
The United States is the only actor that can convince its allies, the Kurds, to step back on their demands and to encourage the Iraqi government to take the step of seeking external, international mediation in Kirkuk, Hiltermann said.
It is not in Kurdish interests to have an open conflict in Kirkuk. They cannot take it peacefully, because the referendum won't be recognized as legitimate by others, and they cannot also take it by force because they will face enemies, including Turkey, he said.
Hiltermann, a top expert of the issue spending much of his time in Iraq, was speaking at a panel organized by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. His Brussels-based ICG is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization, with nearly 120 staff members throughout the world, working through field-based analysis and advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflicts.
We, the International Crisis Group, are proposing an alternative way, a way out of this looming crisis. This would involve, most importantly, cancellation of the referendum, for now. No deadline for a referendum, he said. Instead, a United Nations envoy should be appointed in some capacity to mediate the conflict between the various communities and with the government and with the Kurdistan regional government to find an alternative solution. The main component of that would have to be that Kirkuk and other disputed territories would gain an interim status for maybe 10 years.
But Hiltermann also was speaking to deaf ears. He said there was some creative thinking in some U.S. administration officials, but that it so far had not turned into policy action.
The United States has other higher-priority issues. They are trying to deal with the situation in Lebanon and the conflict over Iran's nuclear program, which I suspect will worsen, said Bulent Aliriza, an expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank here. The Americans are bogged down in Iraq. They're trying to contain the violence in Baghdad and the Shiite-Sunni sectarian conflict and to fight the Sunni Arab insurgency at the same time. They have no energy or enthusiasm to deal with Kirkuk, and they defer the problem.
Now Kirkuk is approaching the ravine, and what will happen Unless the Kurds back down, which at this point seems unlikely, will Turkey intervene militarily Will Kirkuk become a blood bath of ethnic fighting Will the Sunni Arabs or al Sadr's men attack the Kurds Will the United States seek to forcefully defend the Kurds and their control of Kirkuk
These are all legitimate but open-ended questions. The only certain thing is that 2007 will be an even tougher year in and on Iraq.
By Umit Enginsoy
Turkish Daily News
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