Iraq Kurdistan independence referendum planned

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: BBC

The president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan Region has told the BBC he intends to hold a referendum on independence within months.

Massoud Barzani said that Iraq was already "effectively partitioned".

While the Kurds would play a part in a political solution to the crisis caused by jihadist-led Sunni Arab rebellion, independence was their right, he added.

Meanwhile, the first session of Iraq's new parliament has been adjourned after deputies failed to elect a new speaker.


Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28103124

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Iraqi parliament session collapses amid political standoff

Iraq's apparently irreconcilable politicians have failed to start a process to elect new leaders, lurching the country ever close to partition and defying desperate calls for unity from regional and global powers.

The much-anticipated session of the country's parliament started on Tuesday with enough members in attendance to ensure the nomination of a speaker would go ahead. However, the meeting quickly descended into farce, with Sunnis and Kurds using an unscheduled recess to withdraw their legislators, ensuring the session collapsed.

Both blocs insisted that Shia politicians name their candidate for prime minister before they revealed their own nominations for speaker. By convention in Iraq, the prime minister's position goes to the Shia, the speaker's position goes to the Sunnis, while the president goes to the Kurds.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/01/iraqi-parliament-session-collapses-death-toll-isis

[bemildred]

1. Many others will try to imitate the Crimean example.

The 21st Century will be a century of self-determination of peoples.

[earthside]

2. One can hope so.

Frankly, I'd like to see some of that even here in the good ol' USA.

Let Texas be free!

[bemildred]

3. I don't think hope has anything to do with it.

I expect it will be ugly, but more small scale ugly, Syria say, or Iraq (but there are many examples anywhere you go), but not WWII ugly. Industrial war is very expensive and resource intensive and it still fails to control the situation, there is no benefit to the perpetrators in it. The minds of the mighty are dull, but they do seem to be gradually grasping that fact.

[Brother Buzz]

4. Sal Russo, please pick up the nearest white courtesy telephone, your ship has come in

Moving Foreign Investment Forward: A Strange PR Pick for Iraqi Kurdistan

September 27, 2006

Some weeks are slow on Move America Forward's email list. Others are bustling. September 15 to 21, 2006, was an example of the latter. Six emails were sent, including two from "The Other Iraq," at the address "[e-mail]."

The emails are noteworthy because they illustrate synergy between two clients of the Republican-associated Sacramento public relations firm Russo Marsh & Rogers (RM&R): Move America Forward, a conservative cheerleader for the Bush administration's "war on terror," and the Kurdistan Development Corporation, an "investment holding and tradings company" formed in partnership with the Kurdistan Regional Government of northern Iraq (and presumably the KDC of the above email address).

The first of the "other Iraq" emails began, "We wanted to send you this short note to let you know that a delegation from Iraqi Kurdistan is back in the United States - continuing our campaign to tell the American public about 'The Other Iraq.'"

The message, sent on September 15, continued, "Americans helped us to win our freedom from the oppressive rule of Saddam Hussein. Thank you so very much for that. ... So far we've been to Washington, D.C. and New York and now Nashville, Tennessee. We're heading westward across America to tell our story and attract American support and investment in the new Iraqi Kurdistan."

<more>

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2006/09/5224/moving-foreign-investment-forward-strange-pr-pick-iraqi-kurdistan

[roamer65]

6. We will soon see an independent Kurdistan.

Hopefully the Peshmerga launch an offensive and take Mosul.

[quadrature]

7. new name needed for 'South Iraq' after partition ...

any suggestions?

[roamer65]

15. Iran wouldn't like it, but West Khuzestan.

The south of old Iraq is Arab Shi'a just like Iran's Khuzestan province right next door. A truly independent Arab Shi'a nation in the south of old Iraq does not bode well for Iran. Longer term they may lose control of Khuzestan province and 90 pct of their oil reserves.

[bemildred]

8. Sale of 4,000 U.S. Missiles to Iraq Is Readied

The State Department has told lawmakers informally that the Obama administration wants to sell Iraq more than 4,000 additional Hellfire missiles for the government’s fight against Islamic insurgents, according to people familiar with the plan.

Sale of the laser-guided missiles made by Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) would be in addition to 500 previously purchased, of which about 400 have been delivered.

The U.S. has pledged military aid to Iraq in its fight against the Islamic State, an extremist Sunni group that’s seized a swath of territory north and west of Baghdad. Iraq’s ambassador to the U.S., Lukman Faily, said today in Washington that weapons have been too slow in coming and “further delay only benefits the terrorists.”

Members of the Senate and House foreign relations committees were informed of the planned sales last week and are conducting an informal review of the potential sale that could last as long as 40 days, according to the people, who asked not to be identified in advance of a public notification. That notice would be issued unless lawmakers voice major reservations.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-01/sale-of-4-000-u-s-missiles-to-iraq-said-to-be-readied.html

[bemildred]

9. Pentagon says growing US forces in Iraq need 'flexibility' for mission

While the US has implicitly pushed for a new government, it has refused to make military intervention like air strikes contingent on a new prime minister. Photograph: Reuters

Officially, the missions the US military is launching in Baghdad are static, unchanging and defined. Protect the US embassy and other American personnel in Iraq. Assess the threat from the Islamic State and the performance of the Iraqi military. Figure out what steps the Pentagon next ought to take to aid Iraq through its crisis.

Unofficially, the Pentagon is indicating that the number of troops in Iraq is likely to continue the incremental expansion that President Barack Obama launched last month after Islamic State forces overran Sunni areas of the country.

A day after the Pentagon announced an additional 300 US troops arrived in Iraq to secure the embassy, its press secretary, Rear Admiral John Kirby, contended that Obama needs "flexibility" in assessing how many army special forces, marines and other uniformed personnel are sufficient for the missions he wants executed.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/01/iraq-us-forces-involvement-mission-obama-isis

[bemildred]

10. How 2 shadowy ISIS commanders designed their Iraq campaign

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“Now you’ve got a bunch of fast-moving guys who have been well trained and tested in Syria with great captured equipment and funding from their own sources and you add the institutional memory of thousands of vets of both Zarqawi and Saddam,” the former British officer said. “And nobody is paying attention because of Syria.”

“These men are very good and very ruthless at this sort of thing,” he said. “How do I know? Because I trained them. As did the Americans and everyone else for their fight against Iran in the ’80s. It’s all the same guys at the top now.”

This combination of slowly gaining strength among disaffected Sunnis was crucial to the ISIS advance.

“You don’t need many Daash guys,” said the Kurdish intelligence official. “A few gun trucks shooting at the checkpoint as a suicide bomber or two in cars smash into it, followed by the tribes taking the police station. A few people acting fast can seem like a lot more.”

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/06/30/231952/how-2-shadowy-isis-commanders.html

[bemildred]

11. 480 U.S. troops now in Baghdad as officials move to secure access to airport

WASHINGTON — The United States has deployed 300 more troops to Baghdad in the last two days, with some of them assigned to secure Baghdad’s international airport, the Obama administration announced Monday.

One senior U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, told McClatchy that the troops were moved to Baghdad after American officials determined that Islamist fighters had consolidated their grip on the western outskirts of the capital in recent days. The movement “convinced us this would be prudent,” the official said.

Baghdad’s airport would be critical to any evacuation of Americans from the capital, where hundreds remain assigned to the U.S. Embassy, the largest American diplomatic mission in the world.

The troops arrived Sunday and Monday, Pentagon spokesman Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said in a statement. Of the 300 who arrived in Baghdad, 100 had been assigned to Iraq June 16 but had remained in Kuwait until it was certain they would be needed.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/06/30/231985/480-us-troops-now-in-baghdad-as.html

[bemildred]

12. Peter Arnett: In Baghdad, we could see the fall of Saigon all over again

Exploding shells and rockets rattled me awake in the early hours of a misty Tuesday morning in Saigon. I scrambled to my hotel roof and watched as fireballs, smoke and debris burst across the city's famous airport once one of the busiest in the world, now shut down as thousands desperate to evacuate jammed the hangars.

As dawn arrived, people rushed to the rooftops of nearby buildings, staring in shock at the sudden, savage attack from artillery encircling the city. Two older military transport planes made an attempt to climb into the sky, slowly twisting and turning to escape surface-to-air missiles. Clay pigeons in a shooting gallery, they both soon exploded in smoke and flames, crashing in pieces on the houses below. Within 24 hours, the whole city was engulfed in chaos as a new regime took over. It was April 1975.

This may be the fate that awaits Baghdad if the march of ISIS continues. The Sunni insurgency has already captured much of Iraq's north (much as the Vietcong had) and is steadily pushing southward. If it reaches the city, what I saw unfold in Saigon nearly 40 years ago is probably a good proxy for what to expect. Here's what it looked like.

I was among a handful of journalists witnessing the end of a country once deemed essential to the security of the United States. Five American presidents had committed billions in resources and sacrificed thousands of soldiers' lives in the conflict (sound familiar?) with the communist North. It was unimaginable that the city could fall.

http://www.mcall.com/opinion/mc-iraq-vietnam-web-20140701,0,2654746.story

[former9thward]

14. Old U.S. Embassy where the helicopters took off the last people.

I took the picture in 1992.

[bemildred]

13. Netanyahu’s call for Kurdish independence sparks questions about a unified Iraq

TEL AVIV — Israel, warily watching the advance of Islamist terrorists across Iraq, appears to be inching toward supporting independence for Kurdistan, a position that would put it at odds with the United States over the partition of Iraq.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for it. And while Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, backpedaled from the comment Monday, analysts here say Netanyahu is just recognizing what is already taking place.

Ofra Bengio, a professor at Tel Aviv University who has written two books about the Kurds, said Netanyahu is cannily navigating the changing Middle East.

“The Obama administration still believes it is possible to keep Iraq unified and integrated, and reality tells a different story,” she said. “Israel is aware of this reality.”

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/07/01/232057/netanyahus-call-for-kurdish-independence.html

[Uncle Joe]

16. Odds

and stated odds are two different things.

[bemildred]

17. I do think the idea of Bibi "cannily navigating" anything is amusing.

But it's consistent with his habit of thwarting Kerry whenever possible.