Get Ready for Kurdish Independence.
By ZALMAY KHALILZAD
In the coming weeks, Iraqs leaders must make existential decisions. If they cannot form a unity government led by a new prime minister and motivate Sunni moderates and tribes to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Iraq is likely to disintegrate.
If the central government fails to grant satisfactory concessions to Sunnis and Kurds, the Kurds will push for sovereignty and independence. The Kurds are serious, and the international community must adapt to this emerging reality. While all Iraqi leaders bear responsibility for resolving the current crisis, the greatest share lies with the countrys Shiite politicians, who dominate the central government. Shiite parties must select a candidate for prime minister who can share power, decentralize the government and depoliticize the security forces.
As a prerequisite for working with the central government, Kurdistan seeks the right to export its own oil; integrate Kirkuk and other recently acquired areas; settle past budget issues and keep its own autonomous finances; and maintain control of the regions Peshmerga security forces, including acquiring weapons to defend itself against ISIS.
The Kurds arent confident that Baghdad will accept these demands and have initiated parallel preparations for independence. Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish president, has asked the regions parliament to establish an electoral commission and set a date to conduct a referendum.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/opinion/iraqs-urgent-need-for-unity.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Unlike the pathetic Iraqi army, the peshmerga militias tend to win fights against ISIS.
The Magistrate
(95,237 posts)All that is left is producing various pieces of formal paper; the thing itself has happened, and some would say, happened about ninety-five years too late.
imthevicar
(811 posts)The Turks have anything to say about it.
The Magistrate
(95,237 posts)Erdogan has pretty much neutered the Turkish Army, and it was Army policy to repress Kurdish aspirations. He is far to engaged in trying to hold on in Istanbul, and deal with the ramification of Syria, to manage much in the direction of a Kurdish state emerging within what was formerly Iraq.
quadrature
(2,049 posts)Its all good.