On September 25th, 2017, Iraqi Kurdistan set in motion a regional referendum to decide on whether the region should secede from Iraq and become an independent state.
The referendum was opposed by nearly every country in the Middle East, the lone exception being Israel. Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran were all especially vocal in their opposition, as each country has a large population of ethnic Kurds, all of which have flirted with the allure of establishing an independent and greater Kurdistan.
Nevertheless, the Kurds went to the polls, and when the dust had cleared, a result overwhelmingly in favor of independence emerged. The turnout was claimed to be high at 72%, which translates to over three million voters. Of those, 92.7% voted for an independent Republic of Kurdistan. Kurds in all four countries erupted in celebration at the news.
Before the ink on the official results could dry, however, tensions rose. Borders closed, ultimatums were given, joint military drills were held. Two days ago, the Iraqi Army marched northeast from their positions near the mostly Arab city of Hawija to the city of Kirkuk and captured the city as well as the airport and the air base near it. While there was some sporadic fighting, the city fell quickly and mostly peacefully.
As the Iraqi Army rolled into the streets of Kirkuk, the Arab and Shia Turkmen populations rejoiced while the Kurds fell into dismay. Kirkuk is a multiethnic city, with large populations of all three ethnicities, and it is considered a cultural capital for Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmen alike. While not originally part of the established Kurdish Regional Government, Kirkuk City and large parts of Kirkuk Province were taken over by Kurdish Peshmerga troops as the predominantly Arab Iraqi Army retreated from an Islamic State offensive in 2014. This was a considerable point of pride for Kurds in Iraq, many of whom believe Kirkuk is a Kurdish city and should have been part of Kurdish-controlled territory since the regional authority was established after the American invasion.
Islamic State has endured a slow but sure decline since its original breakneck expansion and no longer controls territory where the border between Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan lies. Its territorial control in Iraq is today restricted to a few small cities in Western Iraq’s Anbar province and some open desert, and there is a considerable possibility the Iraqi Army will be launching an offensive to secure the border in full before the end of the year.
As well as defeating ISIS for good, the Iraqi Army seems determined to march farther north into Kurdish-controlled territory and move towards the original borders of the Kurdish Region to the dismay of many Kurds living in those areas. There is considerable fear that this will lead Iraq into another civil war, only a few years after sectarian fighting allowed Islamic State to reach all the way to Baghdad’s suburbs.
On October 17th, unconfirmed reports claimed that the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga would withdraw to the original borders of the three provinces set out for Iraqi Kurdistan in 2003. If this holds, the Kurdistan Regional Government will shrink considerably back to its original size. Evidence suggests that this agreement is being implemented.
The possibility of independence, which was always going to be a difficult prospect even on the best day, seems to be fading. If the Peshmerga abides by their possible agreement to move back peacefully and Kurdish regions stay with Iraq, there could be major consequences for leaders in both Baghdad and Erbil.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi will likely see his popularity, already considerable, move even higher. The defeat of ISIS as a state and the mostly peaceful preservation of Iraq’s northern borders would cement him as a pivotal and effective leader. Whether he can translate that momentum into strengthening Iraq’s economy, battling corruption, keeping sectarian tensions low and rebuilding after the war against ISIS is yet to be seen, but it’s pretty likely that unless tensions bubble up again that Al-Abadi will at least be given a second chance when and if he runs for re-election.
KRG President Masoud Barzani could possibly face considerable consequences in the opposite direction. If the Kurdish region does not go independent, Kurds will likely blame his government for not following through.
Iraqi Kurdistan, doted on by many media outlets in the west because it is largely peaceful, free from sectarian violence, and generally more secular than the rest of Iraq, is still saturated with its own problems. The Peshmerga forces in charge of its defense often fight for one of the major political parties rather than the region at large, highlighting the region’s serious political polarization. Masoud Barzani, president since 2005, hasn’t faced re-election since 2009, and the region hasn’t gone to the polls to elect a new Parliament since 2011. Barzani has long been accused of being dictatorial and authoritarian in his rule, and those claims are not without merit. The two major parties in Iraqi Kurdistan, the right-wing Kurdistan Democratic Party and the left-wing Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, fought a civil war between 1994 and 1997, less than 10 years after the Genocide of Al-Anfal, and their animosity remains present.
Like any other people, the Kurds of Iraq deserve the right to decide their own fate, and even with the ethnic tensions in areas like Kirkuk, most Kurds in Iraq do seem to want independence. Kurds cheered the end of Saddam Hussein’s reign when the US invaded and remain quite pro-American in many cases. Kurds in both Syria and Iraq have been vital forces for good against the Islamic State-in fact, this article happened to be published on the day predominantly Kurdish forces defeated Islamic State in their de facto capital of Raqqa. A secular, democratic and independent Kurdistan could be a force for good in the Middle East if it was able to tactfully work out its relationship with Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria, and the possibility of a relationship between an independent Kurdish state with Israel could have been reason for hope.
The Kurds’ desire for independence is not the problem, but the way the referendum came about left a lot to be desired. While there is an argument to be made that there’s never a really optimum time for a region to declare independence from a state which has ruled over them for a long period of time, Iraqi Kurdistan’s independence referendum happened at poorly decided time. It’s understandable that many Kurds were of the opinion “If not now, when?”, but there were serious regional issues. President Barzani seemed to use the independence referendum as a distraction above anything else. It allowed him to divert attention from the lack of free elections for nearly 6 years both for the executive and legislative branches of the government. It allowed a distraction from the region’s endemic corruption and inability to pay many workers. Even if Iraqi Kurdistan did go independent peacefully, the chances of it resolving its own internal problems as well as negotiating separation from Iraq would have been difficult even for an accountable democratic government.
In the end, the Kurds in Iraq don’t look like they’ll be ruling over their own independent state in the immediate future. Independence was never going to be an easy struggle for this long-oppressed people, but a serious reshuffling of priorities before going ahead with the referendum may have made it a bit more feasible. It’s true that being surrounded by hostile neighbors backed up by international alliances didn’t help much (only Israel, a country widely mistrusted across the Middle East, was willing to go out on a limb and explicitly support the region’s desire for independence), but the rollout of this attempt was clumsy, ill-times, and collapsed quickly when pressure was applied.
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