The 46" pipelines from Kirkuk to Turkey runs through Sunni/ISIS territory. IOW, until a new pipeline is created the Kurds need agreements with Sunnis to move their oil.
Posted on 07/11/2014 11:21:42 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
If Nouri al-Maliki wanted to dissolve the Iraqi union purposefully, he could hardly be doing a better job. While Kurds fight ISIS in the north — and more effectively than Maliki’s politically purged army has — Maliki accused them of being in league with the extremists even as Kurds mull over whether to just go on their own. Now they want Maliki out, or they’ll be leaving for good:
Iraq’s Kurds said Thursday Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was “hysterical” and not fit to run the country, further dimming the prospect of a new leadership uniting to face jihadist fighters.
The worsening political discord comes three days ahead of a planned parliamentary session meant to revive the process of replacing what has effectively been a caretaker government since April elections.
Maliki “has become hysterical and has lost his balance”, a statement from the office of Kurdish regional president Massud Barzani said, reacting to accusations by the prime minister a day earlier that his administration was harbouring militants.
The Kurdish delegation in Iraq’s parliament has walked out, as have Kurdish ministers in Maliki’s government. That prompted Maliki to retaliate, albeit impotently:
A dispute between Iraq’s Shiite-led central government and the semi-autonomous Kurdish region is boiling over, as Kurdish ministers withdrew from all cabinet meetings. In response, Baghdad is reportedly halting some cargo flights between Kurdish cities.
The spat is playing out under the threat of the extremist Sunni group the Islamist State, which has taken over cities and territories in northern and western Iraq. …
The Kurdish part of Iraq is becoming ever more remote from the government in Baghdad. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused Kurds of sheltering terrorists and Saddam Hussein loyalists. In response, a Kurdish politician, Roz Nouri Shawesm, called Maliki hysterical and said he must step down.
“Kurdish ministers will no longer attend cabinet meetings. Kurdish fighters have taken advantage of the chaos engulfing Iraq to seize territory to which they have long laid claim, including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
For one, Kurds have their own independent lines of communication when it comes to air travel and cargo. They’ve been handling that themselves since the 1991 war, which gave them long-awaited autonomy from Saddam Hussein after decades of genocide and oppression. They can get their own supplies, and with their suddenly improved relations with Turkey, may have more robust options than Baghdad does on trade.
Plus, the Kurds have their own oil revenue — and they’ve added a couple of new fields to that stock today:
Iraqi Kurds have taken over two oil fields amid a growing dispute with the government in Baghdad, Iraqi and Kurdish sources say.
Kurdish peshmerga forces seized control of production facilities at the Bai Hassan and Kirkuk oil fields in the north of the country on Friday.
Maliki’s government demanded that the Peshmerga return the fields to Iraqi control, but the Kurds say Baghdad was about to “sabotage” the facilities:
In a statement on Friday, the Iraqi oil ministry condemned the seizure of oil refineries, adding that they expected Kurdish fighters to “support security forces in confronting terrorist groups rather than using the conditions to raid and occupy oil fields”.
Reuters news agency said a senior source within the Kurdistan Regional Government had confirmed the takeover.
The unnamed source said they had been “forced to act to protect Iraq’s infrastructure after learning of attempts by Iraq oil ministry officials to sabotage it”.
Global Post‘s Jean MacKenzie, writing at The Week, advises that the world should just let Iraq partition itself:
While the Iraqi army is much larger and better-equipped than ISIS and its affiliates, it has had limited success in dislodging the insurgents from other areas it has seized. Fallujah and Ramadi have been under ISIS control since January.
Steven Simon, a senior fellow at The Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, agrees that it may be too much to hope that ISIS can be defeated.
“ISIS is deeply rooted in western Iraq,” he said. “They also have safe havens on the other side of the rather blurred border [with Syria].”
The Kurds in the north, who have seized territory and become all but independent over the past two weeks, will not give up their gains, Mendelsohn insisted, and putting the country back together may be nearly impossible.
“We are looking at de facto partition,” said Mendelsohn.
Maliki had a chance to keep this from happening after the 2007 surge, and the US its chance to stick around and apply pressure to push Maliki in that direction. Those chances are gone now, and not even a US intervention in force is likely to revive them. Maliki’s actions in this crisis show that he has no interest in unity under a federalist, shared-power system, and as long as Maliki’s in charge the Kurds and the Sunnis will have no incentive to stick around. Get ready for the sectarian bloodbath to come, and the best the West will probably be able to do is to contain it to Iraq and Syria while promoting democracy in the new, independent Kurdistan.
That was the PKK, a Kurdish Workers Party in Southeastern Turkey.
~Is Islam better than communism?~
I don’t want to look like a communist sympathizer but yes, communism is better than islam.
Both are as much a failure in short to mid-term but unlike islam, communism tends to republican form of government and also communists thinks high about education which is not the case for islam.
Both features are also a primary reasons why communism cannot exist in a long run, because being applied to a primitive society, it produces a number of smart people who tends to see bullcrap behind the rest of a communist ideology. And said societies already have executive, legal and civil judicial system largely similar in form to the free world. All communist societies are republics, there are no socialist kingdoms or theocracies, so all they need is to fix rules.
I short, to transform a communist society into a free republic, given you have enough open-minded people, you need free elections to make your Soviet into Parliament and break a one-party rule and to make courts independent from an executive branch.
It is not if it is that easy but the road to freedom is much shorter for post-communists than for typical 7-th century feudal theocracy, which is an average muslim society is.
Happy to see that....but no surprise. It was simply a matter of acquiring the oil fields... and as important buyers. Kurds are known to be a fair people overall so in business they'll be well received...at least as long as they can control their areas. Not sure Turkey will go along with that indefinitely....they could throw an iron in that pot at any time.
...”The Great Saladin of Crusades fame was a Kurd”....
Oh that’s very interesting! I didn’t know that, though I understand some of his history regarding the Crusades ,,,so that’s very interesting indeed.
Kurdish Iraq...
Sunni Iraq...
Sucky Iraq...
They all need their little private parts...[pun intended]
The amount of “terror” as you put it cannot possibly “double”???
It can be better defined...Located, dealt with...
Do you thinking that Iraq, as it once was, is salvageable as a country, or sovereign nation, in the world???
Just curious...
Central Iraq then needs to be a Kurdish Protectorate.
The 46" pipelines from Kirkuk to Turkey runs through Sunni/ISIS territory. IOW, until a new pipeline is created the Kurds need agreements with Sunnis to move their oil.
And these are just the official fields. I've traveled in Babil province, in the central part of the country where no oilfields supposedly are and oil bubbles from the ground and pollutes fields.
I've long said the country is awash in oil. All that the 3 defacto Iraqi states need to do is come to agreement on oil export routes and refinery product access. Then they can all get rich and have cheap petroleum products for their people. We'll see if they can get along for such a clear advantage.
We wouldn't have ISIS if the US didn't decide that Assad had to go. Now the only intelligent thing to do would be to support Assad and try to contain ISIS.
Are they (Kurds) still tied to communism?
The joke is that they have a mixed economy - both Barzani and Talabani types of business. Corruption and nepotism seem to trump any ideology. Despite corruption, they have instituted business friendly policies.
The general standard of living for the population in Iraqi Kurdistan is rising as well, well above the rest of Iraq. Thousands of Kurds have become millionaires. Free trade zones have been established with Turkey and Iran. Oil leases were granted to American companies.
Historically, all the Kurdish parties back in the 1940’s and 1950s looked to the Soviet Union for support, and they had their own communist party, as well as many ideological socialists.
Starting in the 1960’s the KDP (the now dominant Barzani party centered in Irbil) started cultivating the USA and Israel (and Iran) for support, and has maintained those relations since. The KDP has long tried to position themselves as an umbrella organization, with room for socialists and conservative tribal philosopies.
The PUK (Talabani-led party from Sulaymaniyah) have always been socialists, and are a member of the Socialist International.
Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Israelis and the Kurds were allied in the effort to stop the Islamofascists being ignored (or aided) by Obama.
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