THE ROVING
EYE The other Iraqi civil
war By Pepe Escobar
The
battle of Basra may be virtually over. But
nobody's talking about the invisible Battle of
Mosul.
President George W Bush's
self-described "defining moment" in Iraq amounted
to this: General Qassem Suleimani, the head of the
Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards
Corps (IRGC) , brokered a deal in Qom, Iran,
between Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's envoys
and Hadi al-Amri, the head of the Badr
Organization and number two to Adbul Aziz
al-Hakim, the head of the the Supreme Islamic
Iraqi Council (SIIC) and a key player of the
government in Baghdad. That sealed the end of the
battle of Basra.
The IRGC was designated
last year by Washington as a
terrorist
organization.
Thus Iranian "terrorists" brokered a peace deal between
the two largest Shi'ite parties in Iraq - ending
a Baghdad government offensive that was
fully authorized and supported by air power by
Washington, according to Bush's National Security
Adviser Steven Hadley. Even under Bush logic, "the
terrorists" won, and Iran won - once again.
The
annexation game Meanwhile, in
northern Iraq, the Kurds are meticulously involved
in de facto annexing strategically crucial,
oil-rich Tameem province, whose capital is Kirkuk,
with reserves of up to 15 billion barrels. Sunni
Arabs and Shi'ite Turkmen fear the prospect - and
are dead-set against the postponed Kirkuk
referendum, which should have been held on
December 2007. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's
government in Baghdad knew for sure they would
lose this vote and thus see Kirkuk become a part
of autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan. So giving the
excuse of "administrative problems", they simply
postponed the referendum.
It's true that
Saddam Hussein "Arabized" Kirkuk by getting rid of
Kurds and bringing in Sunni Arabs. In theory, the
name of the game now is restoring Kirkuk's
population balance to the same level prior to
Saddam's forced Arabization. The Kurds are angered
with the referendum being postponed and any spark
at this stage could turn into another full-blown
civil war.
This year, a smatter of Sunni
and Shi'ite political parties united in calling
the Kurdish platform "too large and irrational" -
and that included Muqtada and former prime
minister Iyad Allawi. As things stand, if there's
no Kirkuk referendum, the provincial governor and
the Kurdish-dominated legislature could
unilaterally call for a vote.
It's a total
impasse. Sunni Arabs in Iraq would never forgive
any government in Baghdad for delivering Kirkuk to
the Kurds. And the Kurds will fight to the death
for Kirkuk. Sunni Arabs keep denouncing
accelerated, regional "Kurdification" – translated
as Kurdish monopoly of the provincial council and
jobs in the police and civil service. This has led
to the formation of Sunni Arab "Awakening
Councils" - just as in the Sunni belt - also
financed and armed by the Americans.
Kurdish journalist Rebwar Fatah insists
Kurds will never give up Kirkuk - unless in the
very unlikely event that the city's population
rejects annexation in the endlessly postponed
Kirkuk referendum. And no matter how the explosive
situation is spun, Kirkuk's population will always
want to directly benefit from the surrounding oil
wealth.
'Clear, hold and
build' But the whole problem goes way
beyond Kirkuk. Kurds are also claiming half of
Mosul, although Mosul has never been Kurdish.
Nowadays, eastern Mosul is Kurdish and western
Mosul is Sunni Arab. The Tigris River cuts the
city in half.
Mosul, the second-largest
city in Iraq and capital of Ninevah province, is
(quietly) billed in Washington as being in the
front line of the "war on terror" - more
precisely, the war on al-Qaeda in the Land of the
Two Rivers. Mosul's Chaldean Catholic Archbishop,
Paulos Faraj Rahho, has been a victim of
kidnapping. Unemployment is running at a whopping
70% - about the same as in Baghdad. Kidnapping is
a prosperous industry. Public services are in
shambles.
The Pentagon goes for its
standard counterinsurgency approach - "clear, hold
and build" - building a wall of mud and earth
around the city's perimeter to prevent weapon
smuggling as well as endless checkpoints for US
and "Iraqi" forces. The problem is, these "Iraqi"
forces are all Kurdish Peshmerga.
In late
January, Maliki spun the success of a "decisive
battle" against al-Qaeda in Mosul. It didn't
amount to much. This month, the Iraqi police, army
and border guards will all be linked with the
Americans, just as in Baghdad. The difference is
that unlike Baghdad, virtually all of them are
Kurds.
It's true that a few hundred
al-Qaeda jihadis, plus a few thousand Sunni Arab
guerrillas, have fled to the Mosul area during the
"surge". But that does not justify what's actually
happening; 12,000 Iraqi Kurd troops plus 9,000
mostly Kurd police are using the Americans to
perform their slow motion ethnic cleansing of
Sunni Arabs while the Americans - with only 1,900
soldiers on the ground - spin it as a success for
the "war on terror". And that still leaves room
for Kurds to bitterly complain about lack of
trucks, weapons and ammunition.
So
where's the Kurd-Arab border? More
than 90% of Iraqi Kurds want independence. Kirkuk
and Mosul as part of a Kurdish entity will mean
the expansion of a process that already features
direct negotiations and agreements with oil
companies such as Hunt Oil (totally bypassing
Baghdad), signature of contracts with at least 30
international investors, and developing a new
Kurdish constitution that totally contradicts
Iraq's constitution - the one approved in 2005
after immense American pressure.
Mosul is
a multicultural city. It's not part of Kurdistan.
As for the only possible answer to the Kirkuk
riddle, it would be transforming it into a kind of
Brussels - a special autonomous region,
independent from Iraqi Kurdistan. Then Sunni
Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Christians and Chaldeans
would all be able to coexist without friction. The
proposal - by Pawzi Akram, a Turkmen - made it to
the Iraqi Parliament. It was mercilessly shot down
by both Sunni Arabs and Kurds.
The battle
for Kirkuk and Mosul holds its own riddle; its
outcome will determine how a knocked out Iraq will
eventually perish, partitioned among Sunni Arabs,
Shi'ites and Kurds.
Who will profit from
it? Ayman el-Amir, writing last year in Egypt's
al-Ahram Weekly, has come to as good a conclusion
as any. The winner, according to him, will be
Israel. Low-intensity civil war is already on - in
fact multiplying itself into Shi'ite-Shi'ite civil
war, such as in Basra, or Sunni Arab-Kurdish civil
war, such as the battle for Kirkuk and Mosul.
Israel would like nothing better than a
proxy war in Iraq pitting Iran and its Arab allies
against Sunni Arab US allies. Meanwhile, writes
al-Amir, "Israel would build a
political-military-economic alliance with a
semi-independent Kurdistan Regional Government,
with oil wealth that would be considerably
enhanced by the prospect of taking over Arab
Kirkuk and Mosul." Israeli interests - not to
mention strategic intelligence - are already
deeply entrenched in Iraqi Kurdistan. Kurdish
leaders have already demonstrated an extraordinary
mobility to always strike deals with the
best-positioned bidder - or with any player
capable of advancing the utmost Kurdish dream,
independence. As for a US-Israeli-greater
Kurdistan alliance, that may still be Washington's
way to achieve its own dream of a new, greater
Middle East. If those pesky, enraged, realist,
Iraqi nationalist Sunnis and Shi'ites don't get in
the way.
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