Kurdistan stays its hand, for now | Middle East |Axisoflogic.com

Kurdistan will stay within an Iraqi political framework, at least for now. After years of conflict, including being on the brink of war, Iraq and Kurdistan have signed an agreement for sharing oil revenues. The deal allows the Kurds to export their oil and gives them a share of non-Kurdish oil exports in the south. Precise details are elusive and in recent days Baghdad has been issuing vague demurrals. International pressures for an argument are considerable.

The Kurds seemed on the brink of full independence a few months ago but have had to draw back. Kurdistan was unable to overcome legal obstacles to oil exports that Iraq erected. The threat posed by the Islamic State required cooperation with Baghdad. And plummeting oil prices hurt, requiring aid from Baghdad.

The nation-state, as it came to be understood in the West as a unified people and government, has always been a generalization, an ideal, or a boastful facade behind which lay repression or even past extirpations. Events today have further weakened the nation-state in many parts of the globe, especially in the Muslim world where foreign powers imposed many borders and where indigenous leaders failed to win the trust of those they governed for many decades.

International pressures
The US has supported a unified Iraq, despite its role in bringing sectarian and ethnic hostilities into the open by defeating Saddam Hussein in 2003. The US has more recently pushed for the revenue-sharing agreement as the basis for a united effort against the Islamic State (IS). The US wants a reliable ally in the region, one with fighting traditions and, preferably, one that has a moderate approach to religion.

The Kurds have a rich military history, though chiefly as guerrillas warring against encroaching states and empires, wearing them down and forcing retreat rather than overtly defeating them. Now that the Kurds have formed something approximating a state, they must field a conventional army in order to defend their land - from IS today, from any number of other states tomorrow.

With American and allied airpower, Iraqi and Kurdish troops, despite remaining problems of corruption and nepotism, are indeed pushing the jihadis back. There is cooperation between the two armies - however, there is little prospect of uniting them. The implication for the permanence of the agreement between Baghdad and Erbil is clear.

Iran too wants a powerful ally. This, to defend against IS in the short-term and against the intrigues of the Sunni monarchies in the long-term. Iran would prefer Iraq and Kurdistan to eschew close ties to the US and Israel, but this isn't in the cards. However, Iran can gain from this bad hand. It can present its importance in the IS war as sign that its foreign policy has important parallels to the West's, and as a reason for further cooperation - and for reason to prevent Israel from attacking it.

Though rising Kurdish assertiveness raises the question of a "greater Kurdistan" including regions in adjacent countries, Turkey sees opportunities amid the risks and prefers Erbil and Baghdad to be on reasonably good terms. A good deal of Kurdish oil flows north into Turkey before reaching the Ceyhan export terminal on the Mediterranean, bringing transit fees to Ankara. A gas pipeline slated for completion in 2017 will bring more.

Foreign energy companies - including Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Marathon, Hess, Gazprom Neft, Sinopec, and DNO - want Erbil and Baghdad on good terms. They wish to see freer exploration and export routes in both regions without a repeat of the tensions that brought them close to war in years past.

Israel would like to see Kurdistan become a regional power, one that will serve its interests in opposing both Iran and Sunni militancy. Israel supported Kurdish guerrillas against Saddam and against the mullahs in Tehran, and presents itself as home to a once stateless people that seeks good relations with another one. Israeli interests of course conflict with those of Iran but the latter's proximity may win out against past help and shared narratives.

The Kurds' defense of Kobane and the use of women fighters has made the cause of Kurdish nationalism known in many parts of the world. In addition to the Kurds streaming in from Turkey and Iran, foreign volunteers are coming from the US, Canada, Israel, the Netherlands, and Germany.

Sunni alarm
The rise of Kurdistan comes at the expense of Sunni Arabs. They dominated Iraq for decades and are now reeling from sudden Kurdish and Shi'ite power. In the Sunnis' estimation, the recent pact between Baghdad and Erbil is not simply about oil and IS; it's about ensuring the continued marginalization of the Sunnis.

Kurdish and Shi'ite campaigns against IS have been accompanied by the destruction of Sunni dwellings, driving them away from the north and center and into Anbar province. Sunni oilfields around Kirkuk are now in Kurdish hands.

The Sunnis have two conflicting options. First, take up arms against IS and help defeat them. In so doing, the Sunnis may win favor in the US which may help with a favorable political settlement. Second, form a transient - and deniable - alliance with IS until sufficient political concessions come from Baghdad, Erbil, and Washington.

The Sunni monarchies of the region are also wary of the rise of Kurdistan and its pact with Baghdad. The monarchies have long supported the Sunni resistance in Iraq as a way of thwarting Iranian-Shi'ite power, which now stretches from Lebanon to Iran and which, in the monarchies' estimation, constitutes a threat to them. This may spur them to increase their role in the IS war and match that of Iran and its Shi'ite cohorts.

The competition and victory, however, may only set the state for greater sectarian conflict in the Gulf region. The US's renewed presence in Iraq may position it amid this increasing tension.

Brian M Downing is a political-military analyst, author of The Military Revolution and Political Change and The Paths of Glory: Social Change in America from the Great War to Vietnam, and co-author with Danny Rittman of The Samson Heuristic.

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