Posted on 06/14/2014 9:42:32 AM PDT by xzins
After a decades-long dispute between Arabs and Kurds over the oil-rich northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, it took just an hour and a half for its fate to be decided.
As al-Qaida-inspired militants advanced across northern Iraq and security forces melted away, Kurdish fighters who have long dominated Kirkuk ordered Iraqi troops out and seized full control of the regional oil hub and surrounding areas, according to a mid-ranking Army officer. He said he was told to surrender his weapons and leave his base.
"They said they would defend Kirkuk from the Islamic State," said the Arab officer, who oversaw a warehouse in the city's central military base. He asked that his rank not be made public.
The Kurdish takeover of the long-disputed city came days after the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and other Sunni militants seized much of the country's second largest city of Mosul and Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit before driving south toward Baghdad. Their lightning advance has plunged the country into its worst crisis since the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. troops.
A spokesman for Kurdish forces, known as the peshmerga, said they had only moved in after Iraqi troops retreated, assuming control of the "majority of the Kurdistan region" outside the semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government.
"Peshmerga forces have helped Iraqi soldiers and military leaders when they abandoned their positions,"
A lawmaker from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-led bloc condemned the peshmerga's move, calling it a "plot" carried out in coordination with the regional government that would "lead to problems."
"The Kurds have taken advantage of the current situation. They seized Kirkuk and they have other plans to swallow other areas," Mohammed Sadoun told The Associated Press.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbn.com ...
Tuck Furkey!
This does look like the end of Iraq as a state. Instead there will be a Kurdistan, a Sunni Arab state, and probably two Shia states for a while, one with oil and the other without. IMO it will take the Shia so long to sort out their sharing issues that the Sunni Arabs will avoid ethnic cleansing and consolidate their state.
Edrogan of Turkey might block Kurdish oil exports for a while, but there will be so much money at stake that he'll be replaced by a Turkish leader who will take Kurdish oil money.
They will likely join the Kurds in Syria and Turkey. They are good people.
Turkey's in NATO. What if a newly-formed Kurdish stake decides to liberate Kurdish areas in Turkey?
Good.
Who was the numbskull that thought that was a good idea?
Maybe ancestors of the same people who think Ukraine would be a good addition to NATO.
I'm seeing NATO for what it's become, I suspect. It's the military arm of those darn European bankers.
Never before in almost a century has Joe Biden been this close to being right about something.
For all their talk about democracy in the western press the Kurds are really hardcore Marxists.
The Second Persian War may be on the brink.
During the Cold War it was a very good idea.
Eisenhower.
In the 1950's it was an extremely good idea. It put an end to the active fighting between the Greeks and Turks, which had been a boon to the Greek Communists. It gave us a close set of bases from which to threaten and spy on the USSR. It made the most powerful Muslim state in the world an ally to Israel. And it gave us a really big stick with which to keep the middle east in line, one the Soviets tried but failed to counter with Egypt.
Keep in mind that until the present administration the ruling party in Turkey had the official position that there is no Islamic vs. Western world. There is only modernity or the lack of it. Turkey has been a very good ally over the years. The invasion of Cypress is the only serious exception.
The Kurds are HARDENED FIGHTERS defending their land - this ISIS mob is child’s play for them. In fact ISIS will not even get near them - they know it’s hopeless.
He took it from Free Republic. We were discussing it here long before ole joe schlepped by
I will try to start it. That whole area is absolutely critical it seems to me.
From the posted article: He said it was unlikely the Kurds would seek formal independence from Iraq, however, because such a move would be strongly opposed by neighboring Turkey and Iran -- both of which have sizable Kurdish minorities -- as well as Washington.
Yet it has been well known that..
". . . Ankara has entered into energy deals with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), something which has infuriated the central Iraqi government in Baghdad but which has helped the Kurds further build a foundation for their independence [yes true that] Ankara has been so alarmed by the growing Kurdish autonomy [in Syria and tolerated by Syria, I believe] that it reportedly has provided support for [ISIS] in their fight against the Kurdish militia that controls the region [of Syria],which is affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)." [my emphasis]
more..
". . . the takeover by ISIS in recent days of Mosul and other cities . . . Ankara will likely not only have to deepen its relationship with the KRG . . . but also alter its approach to the Kurds in Syria [I ask: but demand that the Kurds in Syria reject the PKK?]"
more..
"Explains Lehigh University professor and Turkey expert Henri Barkey in an analysis piece on Al-Monitor website: The crisis may force the Turks to rethink some of their policies in Syria. To date, Ankara’s friendship with the Kurds stopped in Iraq; Erdogan and his government have taken an uncompromising position against Syrian Kurds led by the Democratic Union Party of Kurdistan (PYD), an offshoot of the Turkish Kurdish insurgent group the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The PYD has emerged as the strongest Kurdish group in Syria and has put together an impressive fighting force to defend its territory from both ISIS and the regime. The idea of another autonomous Kurdish region on its borders after the KRG has been anathema to Ankara. Paradoxically, the PYD’s armed elements are some of the only ones that have scored blows against the jihadists. In the face of the ISIS sweep, the PYD and the KRG, which have also had antagonistic relations, appear to be cooperating on defensive measures against ISIS. Turkey may have to reconsider its boycott of the Syrian Kurds to enlarge the anti-ISIS coalition." [my emphasis]
I don't think that the KRG wants anything to do with Turkey's enemy the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terrorists -- our State Dept calls the PKK a terrorist group.
Turkey was a key ally all during the Cold War. They have their own Obama in the person of (Islamist?) Erdogan and the AKP trying to convert Turkey's secular constitutional government into something tens of millions of Turks oppose. They are the true Turks. Just as we are the true Americans.
This may be of interest also, from 6/5/14:
http://gcaptain.com/kurdish-tanker-hauling-disputed-crude-leaves-moroccan-port-without-unloading/
The Kurds are trying to sell their own oil on the open market.
Baghdad has been trying to hamper those efforts
Yes thanks. That was interesting with all the talk about how oil prices are going to skyrocket. Here’s a region of Iraq that can be protected and provide oil, maybe it is that simple. Maybe. And as an added bonus destroy the ISIS and replace the corrupt Iran-backed Baghdad government.
I guess Biden was right for once in his life.
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