Tag: Iraq

Peshmerga Flag

Iraqi Kurds voted in a referendum for independence from Iraq. Iraqi forces are now poised near Kirkuk, in position to attack, though the Iraqi PM claims they will not do so.

Kirkuk oil field was seized by the Kurds in 2014, and it produces more than half of Iraq’s oil.

Neither Iran nor Turkey want an independent Kurdish state. (This is a violent understatement, especially with regards to Turkey.)

Since Kurdistan has no sea border, Iraq and Turkey control its access to world markets, and the Iraqi government has been closing its exports, restricting its sales of oil.

And the Kurds have just moved another 6,000 Peshmerga to Kirkuk.

The Kurds were treated very badly under Saddam, and haven’t been happy with the Iraqi government since then either. They have also been firm US allies, and they have quite a bit of support in Congress and the US military as a result.

Is this going to blow?

(I am fundraising to determine how much I’ll write this year. If you value my writing and want more of it, please consider donating.)

I don’t know, but I do know that Iraq is not going to let Kurdistan go independent and take over half the oil with it, and I know that Kurdistan would need that oil to be viable. Kurdistan also needs to be able to get that oil to market, and has few friends in the region.

I don’t see how Kurdish independence works, and I say that as someone who has sympathy for their aspirations. If they weren’t landlocked…but they are. To remedy the landlocked situation, they could take land from Syria, Turkey, or both, something that is unlikely at best, because Turkey just isn’t going to allow it and has a large enough military to have a veto.

Not sure where this goes, or where it ends, but the bottom line is Iraq won’t voluntarily let Kurdistan leave with all that oil, and Kurdistan won’t voluntarily leave without it, and if Kurdistan insists on leaving, the issue will probably have to be settled violently.

That doesn’t seem to be a war that ends well for the Kurds, but perhaps I’m missing something. (Lord help them if they are counting on serious US support to even the odds.)

If you enjoyed this article, and want me to write more, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.

The West Should Just Stop Intervening

By Ian Welsh

On June 12, 2014

Comments

Half a Million Flee Mosul according to estimates. Reading through, there is some fear of ISIS and there is some fear of the fighting in general: which is wise, because the government’s only likely response is to either call out other militias (who can actually fight, unlike the army) or to use air power. Indiscriminate bombing, as in Fallujah, isn’t good for civilians. A lot of people fled because they saw others fleeing. But the lesson of Syria (and pretty much every other war) is this: you don’t want to be caught in a disputed city.

However, many others have been happy to see ISIS conquer Mosul, and are rallying to it.

The bottom line here is that the Iraqi army collapsed: it did not fight.

Some people want the US to go back in. That is a mistake. The Iraqi government was never likely to survive on its own, as constituted, any more than the Afghan government will survive the American pullout. The Iraqi government was artificial, without an actual power based which believed in it enough to fight for it. The same is true, again, in Afghanistan.

You can only keep such tools in power by main, external, force. If you go back into Iraq, you can’t leave because America is incapable of setting up a government which will be able to maintain control: people will not fight and die for the sort of deeply corrupt thugs that America today always puts in charge.

ISIS is a deeply problematic organization, as is the Taliban, but here’s what they have going for them: they believe and they’re willing to fight and die.

The situation in Iraq will be determined on the ground, by those people willing fight and die: the Kurds, ISIS, various non ISIS aligned Sunni militias, and the Shia militias. It will be determined by Iran, who is the only country which could intervene and maintain the peace otherwise.

If the US chooses not to accept this, not to allow this to play out, it will be stuck in Iraq for another ten years, and during that time Iraq will stay destabilized and more and more people will die

There are no good options here, but whatever solution is come to, it must be determined by people who have a real stake in the area, who are willing to fight and die for their beliefs. Only they can impose a peace. There’s a very good chance that it will be a very ugly peace, much like the Taliban imposed in Afghanistan.

So be it. I don’t like it, but there are NO other solutions which are better. American intervention again is not a better option.

If you want to support someone on the ground, support to the Shi-ite militias. They and the Peshmergas, are the ones who will defeat ISIS, if ISIS is defeated. Forget the government, it’s failed. It failed on day one, because it could never keep the peace because no one believed in it.

And stop aiding the insurgents in Syria. Again, this is a cost of the Syrian intervention. ISIS is LOSING to the Syrian forces and Hezbollah and has, in part, been pushed into Iraq. The other reason for them going into Iraq is to cut the Iranian supply lines to Syria and Hezbollah (something the West has no problem with.)

The West must stop intervening in other parts of the world. Getting rid of Qaddafi destabilized not just Libya, but two others. Attacking Afghanistan has destabilized Pakistan. The. Stop. It. The West doesn’t know how to do it successfully. It always makes things worse. Don’t intervene militarily and stop intervening covertly, as in Ukraine.

Just stop.

If you enjoyed this article, and want me to write more, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.

The Iraq Awakening Showdown

By Ian Welsh

On April 8, 2009

Comments

Image by a62a68

Looks like the Iraqi government is moving against the Awakening Councils in Iraq. The councils, as you may recall, were the Sunnis (many of them ex-insurgents) whom the Americans paid and armed to fight al-Qa’eda in Iraq, and to impose some sort of rough peace on their areas. They aren’t really controlled by the central government, and no central government likes the idea of having independent military forces in its territory, so they’ve been arresting leaders, which has led to some pitched fighting.

From the point of view of the Iraqi central government, they’ve got till the US leaves to get this done with. As with when they went after al-Sadr is Basra and had to be bailed out by American troops and Iranian diplomacy, it’s not clear that the Iraqi army is capable of independent operations against highly motivated enemy forces. But as long as the Americans are around, no one wants to call up a large enough force to beat the Iraqi army, because if they do the Americans will swoop down, and no one in Iraq can beat them in open field combat and even if they could, the losses they would take are not worth it.

The “surge” worked less becuase of extra troops than because ethnic cleansing had pretty much completed itself and because Americans paid part of the insurgency (the Awakening Councils) to fight another part (al-Qa’eda in Iraq).

The question now is whether the Iraqi government can get enough of a monopoly on force to survive after the majority of American forces leave. It’s not clear to me that they can, if only because their own military is pretty awful and thoroughly infiltrated by various other groups. A lot will depend on the deals they cut with the Sunni opposition, and with al-Sadr. If Sadr and the Sunnis decide to work together, I don’t think the central government can survive. Folks forget the nature of militias in Iraq—you put out the call, and they rise up and when they’re not needed large numbers of them appear to be little more than civilians.

And again, when it comes to large scale operations, the Iraq army does not have a record of success unless backed up by US troops.

So this will be a political game as much as a military one. If the central government doesn’t buy off enough of the opposition, I expect it will lose entire provinces to a new insurgency when they rise after the Americans leave.

Remember, the game has never been primarily about fighting the Americans. The game has always been about who will be in charge after the Americans leave.

Addendum: The Newshoggers have been covering Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan better than anyone else I’ve seen, and very much in the spirit of the old BOPnews and Agonist. I suggest keeping an eye on them if you want good analysis about what’s really going on.

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Tag: Iraq

Is There Going to Be an Iraqi-Kurdish War?

The West Should Just Stop Intervening

The Iraq Awakening Showdown