From CCB LCB LKY to GCT to LHL and still on, SG love and feel SAFE to be a running dog for USA. And Never learn after USA betrayed and abandoned so many dogs to die. Even executed Saddam who help USA to invade Iran after Iran took hostage of American Embassy in Tehran.
Kurds are being used to fight ISIS, just same as SG53!
After using Kurds to fight ISIS @ Raqqa fell, the Kurds expected their hard earned rewards promised - USA to support Independence Kurdishtan on Syrian & Iraqi soils half-half. But what did they get? BETRAYAL BACK-STAB & ABANDONED!
Dotard Trump personally told Erdogan that he is not suppling arms to Kurds any longer, signal Turkey to begin to Cannibalize Kurds alive! Now the onslaught is big time and Kurds are fleeing from their dreamland of future Kurdishtan to Iraq, awaiting there Iraqi will kill them jointly with Turks. USA will enjoy the free show! BBQ of their Kurdish dogs!
Singapore's fate will be similar, after being used by USA, and expecting protection from USA when foolish PAP can not even see that USA can no longer cover own ass from Kim Jong Nuke's Hwasong ICMBs and nukes! Singaporeans will end up in great losses and death plus destruction after serving as a dog of USA, and found no longer useful. NO EXCEPTION!
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-42118567
US to stop arming anti-IS Syrian Kurdish YPG militia - Turkey
Image copyright AFP
Image caption The YPG played a key role in removing IS from Raqqa and other strongholds
The US is to stop supplying arms to the Syrian Kurdish militia the YPG, Turkey has said.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said President Donald Trump had made the promise in a phone call to his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The White House said it was making "adjustments" to its support for partners inside Syria but did not explicitly name the YPG.
Turkey has long complained about US support for the group.
Washington has viewed the YPG as a key player in the fight against so-called Islamic State (IS), but Ankara brands the group's fighters as terrorists.
Turkey says the YPG is as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a group it has been fighting for decades in south-eastern Turkey.
The US, however, has seen the YPG as distinct from the PKK. In May it announced it would supply arms to the Kurdish elements of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which were poised to drive IS from its stronghold of Raqqa. It had previously armed only Arab elements of the SDF.
Image copyright AFP
Image caption US-led coalition military advisers have been assisting YPG fighters
"President Trump instructed [his generals] in a very open way that the YPG will no longer be given weapons," Mr Cavusoglu was quoted as saying in the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News.
He said Mr Trump gave his assurances after President Erdogan reiterated his concern over the continued supply of weapons and armoured vehicles to the YPG.
A major shift
Analysis: The BBC's Laura Bicker in Washington
If this is true, it would be a major shift in US policy. The Kurds have proved to be valuable partners in the fight against IS.
It is notable that Washington's account of the call does not mention taking away the arms that the Trump administration agreed to give the YPG earlier this year - something Ankara has called for. Turkey feared the weapons would end up in the hands of fighters intent on creating an independent Kurdish state.
The Pentagon is likely reassessing its needs in Syria as the fight against IS has waned in recent months. But whatever adjustments are being made, it is clear the US military has no plans to leave the war-torn country. It has been revealed that about 2,000 US troops are now based there - a significant increase since the Obama administration.
The White House confirmed the two leaders had spoken by phone and said Mr Trump "reaffirmed the strategic partnership" between the US and Turkey.
"Consistent with our previous policy, President Trump also informed President Erdogan of pending adjustments to the military support provided to our partners on the ground in Syria, now that the battle of Raqqa is complete," the statement said.
"We are progressing into a stabilisation phase to ensure that Isis [IS] cannot return. The leaders also discussed the purchase of military equipment from the United States."
Image copyright AFP
Image caption Pro-Syrian government forces have also driven IS from land it once controlled
The SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, has driven IS militants from much of the land it once controlled.
The YPG and its political arm, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), denies any direct links with the PKK, whose insurgency has left thousands dead.
But Mr Cavusoglu has previously said that every weapon obtained by the YPG constituted "a threat to Turkey".
The SDF declared victory in Raqqa last month after a four-month battle to retake the city from IS, which had ruled it for three years.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...d1e45a6de3d_story.html?utm_term=.fd1dc98659b0
Trump tells Turkish president U.S. will stop arming Kurds in Syria
President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, shown in May, have agreed that the United States will stop providing arms to Kurdish fighters in Syria. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
By Carol Morello and Erin Cunningham November 24, 2017 Email the author
The Trump administration is preparing to stop supplying weapons to ethnic Kurdish fighters in Syria, the White House acknowledged Friday, a move reflecting renewed focus on furthering a political settlement to the civil war there and countering Iranian influence now that the Islamic State caliphate is largely vanquished.
Word of the policy change long sought by neighboring Turkey came Friday, not from Washington but from Ankara. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters at a news conference that President Trump had pledged to stop arming the fighters, known as the YPG, during a phone call between Trump and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“Mr. Trump clearly stated that he had given clear instructions, and that the YPG won’t be given arms and that this nonsense should have ended a long time ago,” the Associated Press quoted Cavusoglu as saying to reporters following the call.
Initially, the administration’s national security team appeared surprised by the Turks’ announcement and uncertain what to say about it. The State Department referred questions to the White House, and hours passed with no confirmation from the National Security Council.
In late afternoon, the White House confirmed the weapons cutoff would happen, though it provided no details on timing.
Armed fighters of the People’s Protection Units, known as the YPG, gather in Kobane, Syria. The militia is made up of ethnic Kurds. (Ahmed Deeb/AFP/Getty Images)
“Consistent with our previous policy, President Trump also informed President Erdogan of pending adjustments to the military support provided to our partners on the ground in Syria, now that the battle of Raqqa is complete and we are progressing into a stabilization phase to ensure that ISIS cannot return,” the White House statement said, referring to the recent liberation of the Syrian city that had served as the Islamic State’s de facto capital.
The decision to stop arming the Kurds will remove a major source of tension between the United States and Turkey, a NATO ally. But it is likely to further anger the Kurds, who already feel betrayed since the United States told them to hand over hard-won territory to the Syrian government.
[U.S. is trapped between its allies’ ambitions in Syria]
Turkey has pointed to the YPG’s affiliation with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party — a Kurdish rebel group that has fought the Turkish state for decades — as evidence of its terrorist ties. The YPG, which formed amid the chaos of the Syrian civil war, has worked with U.S. forces to oust the Islamic State from key areas there.
The Obama administration began arming the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is dominated by the Kurdish YPG militia, because they were considered the most effective fighters against Islamic State militants.
The phone call between Trump and Erdogan followed a summit on Syria held this week in Sochi, Russia. It was attended by Erdogan, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Both Russia and Iran backed the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and helped Syrian forces to rout the Islamic State.
The two powers, along with Turkey, have forged an alliance that is advancing its own peace plan, in which the United States would play little role beyond being an observer. They have said U.S. troops should leave Syria now that the Islamic State’s defeat appears imminent.
But a U.S. withdrawal without a peace plan well on its way would be victory for Assad, and by extension, Iran and Russia.
Checkpoint newsletter
Military, defense and security at home and abroad.
So U.S. officials have said they plan to keep American troops in northern Syria — and continue working with Kurdish fighters — to pressure Assad to make concessions during peace talks brokered by the United Nations in Geneva, stalemated for three years now. “We’re not going to just walk away right now,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said last week.
[U.S. moves toward open-ended presence in Syria after Islamic State is routed]
James Jeffrey, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey from 2008 to 2010, said the decision to cease supplying weapons to the Kurds appears to reflect an evolving strategy to keep playing a productive role in Syria and weaken Iranian-backed militias and Hezbollah, both of which fought alongside Syrian forces to regain territory from the militants.
“Fighting ISIS was such a priority, we had to focus on that before other things,” he said, using a common acronym for the Islamic State. “Now as the conventional fight is over, we’re trying to come up with a bigger policy. We can’t do it without Turkey. It’s pure geography. We have to mend fences with the Turks if we want to remain in Syria.”
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/mark...nd-kurdistan-revise-and-rebuild-after-kirkuk/
Markaz
The U.S. and Kurdistan: Revise and rebuild after Kirkuk
Ranj Alaaldin Friday, November 3, 2017
Markaz
The Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) loss of Kirkuk province to Baghdad this month, along with a string of other territories in northern Iraq, has shifted the pendulum in Kurdistan from one of jubilation and defiance to despair and uncertainty. Kurdish autonomy is not in doubt, but the balance of power has moved in Baghdad’s favor. U.S. relations with the KRG have also taken a serious blow as a result of Washington’s acquiescence to the Kirkuk offensive, which was aimed at bolstering Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s position and sidelining Iran-aligned factions ahead of next year’s elections.
Author
Ranj Alaaldin
Visiting Fellow - Brookings Doha Center
@RanjAlaaldin
As the dust settles from the Kirkuk crisis, the United States and Kurdistan must revise and rebuild their relationship quickly, for the sake of American, Kurdish, and Iraqi interests. While Washington’s green light for the Kirkuk offensive has hurt relations with the KRG, the damage is not irreparable. The decision by Masoud Barzani, the longtime KRG president, to step down from his role was welcomed by the State Department. This creates an opportunity for Washington to work more closely with KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani (Masoud Barzani’s nephew) and Qubad Talabani, Kurdistan’s deputy prime minister. Still, the United States has a long way to go before American credibility is fully restored after an episode that will dominate the Kurdish political outlook for years to come.
Kurdistan and the United States must revise their traditional relationship to conform with the increasingly transactional and less values-based nature of U.S. foreign policy today. The Kurds can no longer pin their ambitions on the United States at a time when the country itself is in upheaval over the shape and definition of America’s engagements abroad. Kurdistan must learn what others in the region learned the hard way after the turmoil that followed the Arab uprisings and the Syrian civil war, without the same suffering and colossal humanitarian consequences. The United States will no longer invest in policing the region, much less shaping and enforcing a regional order that could be conducive to Kurdish statehood.
U.S. policymakers should take stock of the fall-out from their ineffectual signaling around the Kurds’ aspirations for independence. While Washington stressed its opposition to the referendum, its heavy emphasis on the war against ISIS and the centrality of the Kurdish Peshmerga, as well as military facilities and political investments in Kurdistan, led to calculations that the United States would not permit a military offensive against the Peshmerga. At least, there were genuine and not entirely unreasonable assumptions that the United States would mediate tensions.
Related
Washington could have helped Baghdad and Erbil navigate the volatile post-referendum climate, but it instead provided carte blanche that the Iraqi government then exploited effectively, with support from regional powers. In the years to come, the United States may rue these choices and the way it handled its relationship with the Kurds and Baghdad.
Moving forward, there is still a relationship of interdependency based around mutual security and geopolitical interests, and the United States and the Kurds remain linked by a convergence of interests ahead of parliamentary elections next year. In particular, al-Abadi cannot emerge victorious from next year’s parliamentary elections and continue at the helm without KRG support, which has been central to the government formation process in Baghdad since 2003 and has often played the role of kingmaker. The multiple other factions in Baghdad are either too weak or too malevolent for U.S. purposes.
Losing the Kurds will result in a weakened American hand in Baghdad and the rest of Iraq, where it will continue to contest regional powers like Iran for influence and where the United States will continue to be engaged as it attempts to prevent ISIS and its ilk from mounting a resurrection in the coming years. In the interim, to salvage the historical alliance between Kurdistan and the United States, Washington should establish—and enforce—red lines that prevent Baghdad from making further advances toward the undisputed Kurdish border area of Faysh Khabur, which Baghdad wants to control in order to economically suffocate the KRG. That could trigger another civil war that reverses U.S. security gains in recent years and opens up space for Iran to exert its influence and fill the gap left by the absence of American leadership.
Related Books
For their part, Iraq’s Kurds must look closer to home and collectively engage in a long, arduous, but worthwhile journey of institution-building and political reform to enhance self-sufficiency as well as the KRG’s political and security structures. The Kurdish leadership has few choices other than to go back to the drawing board. With technical, political, and financial support from the international community, including the United States, it should focus its energy and resources toward institution-building and good governance practices, including reconciliation between rival Kurdish parties. The biggest challenge facing the Kurds is a crisis of internal sovereignty and heightened tensions between its political parties—Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), its historic rival with whom it clashed throughout the 1990s.
The KDP and PUK will reconcile, as they have done before, and there are arbiters within the two rival parties that have long-standing, ongoing interactions that can ensure tensions do not escalate into another intra-Kurdish civil war. While the KDP managed to organize its rivals around a unified front for the referendum, party leaders must now realize that simply managing the fragmented political climate and the competing power centers between and within Kurdistan’s main parties is no longer sustainable. It is only through championing and implementing serious political reform that Kurdistan can overcome internal divisions and, potentially, once again make a push for independence in the coming years.
A stronger Kurdistan can also help build a stronger Iraq that advances the interests of the region and the international community. Evaluating and re-defining the nexus between Erbil and Baghdad could allow for a common national framework that revives the relationship between citizen and state. This will require that equitable, just, and sustained power-sharing arrangements become firmly entrenched within Iraq’s fragile political system. Otherwise, aspirations for Kurdish statehood will continue to disrupt and divide an Iraqi state that has a plethora of other challenges ahead, some existential and generational.
Kurds are being used to fight ISIS, just same as SG53!
After using Kurds to fight ISIS @ Raqqa fell, the Kurds expected their hard earned rewards promised - USA to support Independence Kurdishtan on Syrian & Iraqi soils half-half. But what did they get? BETRAYAL BACK-STAB & ABANDONED!
Dotard Trump personally told Erdogan that he is not suppling arms to Kurds any longer, signal Turkey to begin to Cannibalize Kurds alive! Now the onslaught is big time and Kurds are fleeing from their dreamland of future Kurdishtan to Iraq, awaiting there Iraqi will kill them jointly with Turks. USA will enjoy the free show! BBQ of their Kurdish dogs!
Singapore's fate will be similar, after being used by USA, and expecting protection from USA when foolish PAP can not even see that USA can no longer cover own ass from Kim Jong Nuke's Hwasong ICMBs and nukes! Singaporeans will end up in great losses and death plus destruction after serving as a dog of USA, and found no longer useful. NO EXCEPTION!
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-42118567
US to stop arming anti-IS Syrian Kurdish YPG militia - Turkey
- 25 November 2017
- Share this with Facebook
- Share this with Twitter
- Share this with Messenger
- Share this with Email
- Share
Image copyright AFP
Image caption The YPG played a key role in removing IS from Raqqa and other strongholds
The US is to stop supplying arms to the Syrian Kurdish militia the YPG, Turkey has said.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said President Donald Trump had made the promise in a phone call to his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The White House said it was making "adjustments" to its support for partners inside Syria but did not explicitly name the YPG.
Turkey has long complained about US support for the group.
Washington has viewed the YPG as a key player in the fight against so-called Islamic State (IS), but Ankara brands the group's fighters as terrorists.
Turkey says the YPG is as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a group it has been fighting for decades in south-eastern Turkey.
The US, however, has seen the YPG as distinct from the PKK. In May it announced it would supply arms to the Kurdish elements of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which were poised to drive IS from its stronghold of Raqqa. It had previously armed only Arab elements of the SDF.
Image copyright AFP
Image caption US-led coalition military advisers have been assisting YPG fighters
"President Trump instructed [his generals] in a very open way that the YPG will no longer be given weapons," Mr Cavusoglu was quoted as saying in the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News.
He said Mr Trump gave his assurances after President Erdogan reiterated his concern over the continued supply of weapons and armoured vehicles to the YPG.
A major shift
Analysis: The BBC's Laura Bicker in Washington
If this is true, it would be a major shift in US policy. The Kurds have proved to be valuable partners in the fight against IS.
It is notable that Washington's account of the call does not mention taking away the arms that the Trump administration agreed to give the YPG earlier this year - something Ankara has called for. Turkey feared the weapons would end up in the hands of fighters intent on creating an independent Kurdish state.
The Pentagon is likely reassessing its needs in Syria as the fight against IS has waned in recent months. But whatever adjustments are being made, it is clear the US military has no plans to leave the war-torn country. It has been revealed that about 2,000 US troops are now based there - a significant increase since the Obama administration.
The White House confirmed the two leaders had spoken by phone and said Mr Trump "reaffirmed the strategic partnership" between the US and Turkey.
"Consistent with our previous policy, President Trump also informed President Erdogan of pending adjustments to the military support provided to our partners on the ground in Syria, now that the battle of Raqqa is complete," the statement said.
"We are progressing into a stabilisation phase to ensure that Isis [IS] cannot return. The leaders also discussed the purchase of military equipment from the United States."
Image copyright AFP
Image caption Pro-Syrian government forces have also driven IS from land it once controlled
The SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, has driven IS militants from much of the land it once controlled.
The YPG and its political arm, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), denies any direct links with the PKK, whose insurgency has left thousands dead.
But Mr Cavusoglu has previously said that every weapon obtained by the YPG constituted "a threat to Turkey".
The SDF declared victory in Raqqa last month after a four-month battle to retake the city from IS, which had ruled it for three years.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...d1e45a6de3d_story.html?utm_term=.fd1dc98659b0
Trump tells Turkish president U.S. will stop arming Kurds in Syria
President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, shown in May, have agreed that the United States will stop providing arms to Kurdish fighters in Syria. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
By Carol Morello and Erin Cunningham November 24, 2017 Email the author
The Trump administration is preparing to stop supplying weapons to ethnic Kurdish fighters in Syria, the White House acknowledged Friday, a move reflecting renewed focus on furthering a political settlement to the civil war there and countering Iranian influence now that the Islamic State caliphate is largely vanquished.
Word of the policy change long sought by neighboring Turkey came Friday, not from Washington but from Ankara. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters at a news conference that President Trump had pledged to stop arming the fighters, known as the YPG, during a phone call between Trump and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“Mr. Trump clearly stated that he had given clear instructions, and that the YPG won’t be given arms and that this nonsense should have ended a long time ago,” the Associated Press quoted Cavusoglu as saying to reporters following the call.
Initially, the administration’s national security team appeared surprised by the Turks’ announcement and uncertain what to say about it. The State Department referred questions to the White House, and hours passed with no confirmation from the National Security Council.
In late afternoon, the White House confirmed the weapons cutoff would happen, though it provided no details on timing.
“Consistent with our previous policy, President Trump also informed President Erdogan of pending adjustments to the military support provided to our partners on the ground in Syria, now that the battle of Raqqa is complete and we are progressing into a stabilization phase to ensure that ISIS cannot return,” the White House statement said, referring to the recent liberation of the Syrian city that had served as the Islamic State’s de facto capital.
The decision to stop arming the Kurds will remove a major source of tension between the United States and Turkey, a NATO ally. But it is likely to further anger the Kurds, who already feel betrayed since the United States told them to hand over hard-won territory to the Syrian government.
[U.S. is trapped between its allies’ ambitions in Syria]
Turkey has pointed to the YPG’s affiliation with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party — a Kurdish rebel group that has fought the Turkish state for decades — as evidence of its terrorist ties. The YPG, which formed amid the chaos of the Syrian civil war, has worked with U.S. forces to oust the Islamic State from key areas there.
The Obama administration began arming the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is dominated by the Kurdish YPG militia, because they were considered the most effective fighters against Islamic State militants.
The phone call between Trump and Erdogan followed a summit on Syria held this week in Sochi, Russia. It was attended by Erdogan, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Both Russia and Iran backed the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and helped Syrian forces to rout the Islamic State.
The two powers, along with Turkey, have forged an alliance that is advancing its own peace plan, in which the United States would play little role beyond being an observer. They have said U.S. troops should leave Syria now that the Islamic State’s defeat appears imminent.
But a U.S. withdrawal without a peace plan well on its way would be victory for Assad, and by extension, Iran and Russia.
Checkpoint newsletter
Military, defense and security at home and abroad.
So U.S. officials have said they plan to keep American troops in northern Syria — and continue working with Kurdish fighters — to pressure Assad to make concessions during peace talks brokered by the United Nations in Geneva, stalemated for three years now. “We’re not going to just walk away right now,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said last week.
[U.S. moves toward open-ended presence in Syria after Islamic State is routed]
James Jeffrey, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey from 2008 to 2010, said the decision to cease supplying weapons to the Kurds appears to reflect an evolving strategy to keep playing a productive role in Syria and weaken Iranian-backed militias and Hezbollah, both of which fought alongside Syrian forces to regain territory from the militants.
“Fighting ISIS was such a priority, we had to focus on that before other things,” he said, using a common acronym for the Islamic State. “Now as the conventional fight is over, we’re trying to come up with a bigger policy. We can’t do it without Turkey. It’s pure geography. We have to mend fences with the Turks if we want to remain in Syria.”
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/mark...nd-kurdistan-revise-and-rebuild-after-kirkuk/
Markaz
The U.S. and Kurdistan: Revise and rebuild after Kirkuk
Ranj Alaaldin Friday, November 3, 2017
Markaz
The Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) loss of Kirkuk province to Baghdad this month, along with a string of other territories in northern Iraq, has shifted the pendulum in Kurdistan from one of jubilation and defiance to despair and uncertainty. Kurdish autonomy is not in doubt, but the balance of power has moved in Baghdad’s favor. U.S. relations with the KRG have also taken a serious blow as a result of Washington’s acquiescence to the Kirkuk offensive, which was aimed at bolstering Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s position and sidelining Iran-aligned factions ahead of next year’s elections.
Author
Ranj Alaaldin
Visiting Fellow - Brookings Doha Center
@RanjAlaaldin
As the dust settles from the Kirkuk crisis, the United States and Kurdistan must revise and rebuild their relationship quickly, for the sake of American, Kurdish, and Iraqi interests. While Washington’s green light for the Kirkuk offensive has hurt relations with the KRG, the damage is not irreparable. The decision by Masoud Barzani, the longtime KRG president, to step down from his role was welcomed by the State Department. This creates an opportunity for Washington to work more closely with KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani (Masoud Barzani’s nephew) and Qubad Talabani, Kurdistan’s deputy prime minister. Still, the United States has a long way to go before American credibility is fully restored after an episode that will dominate the Kurdish political outlook for years to come.
Kurdistan and the United States must revise their traditional relationship to conform with the increasingly transactional and less values-based nature of U.S. foreign policy today. The Kurds can no longer pin their ambitions on the United States at a time when the country itself is in upheaval over the shape and definition of America’s engagements abroad. Kurdistan must learn what others in the region learned the hard way after the turmoil that followed the Arab uprisings and the Syrian civil war, without the same suffering and colossal humanitarian consequences. The United States will no longer invest in policing the region, much less shaping and enforcing a regional order that could be conducive to Kurdish statehood.
U.S. policymakers should take stock of the fall-out from their ineffectual signaling around the Kurds’ aspirations for independence. While Washington stressed its opposition to the referendum, its heavy emphasis on the war against ISIS and the centrality of the Kurdish Peshmerga, as well as military facilities and political investments in Kurdistan, led to calculations that the United States would not permit a military offensive against the Peshmerga. At least, there were genuine and not entirely unreasonable assumptions that the United States would mediate tensions.
Related
Washington could have helped Baghdad and Erbil navigate the volatile post-referendum climate, but it instead provided carte blanche that the Iraqi government then exploited effectively, with support from regional powers. In the years to come, the United States may rue these choices and the way it handled its relationship with the Kurds and Baghdad.
Moving forward, there is still a relationship of interdependency based around mutual security and geopolitical interests, and the United States and the Kurds remain linked by a convergence of interests ahead of parliamentary elections next year. In particular, al-Abadi cannot emerge victorious from next year’s parliamentary elections and continue at the helm without KRG support, which has been central to the government formation process in Baghdad since 2003 and has often played the role of kingmaker. The multiple other factions in Baghdad are either too weak or too malevolent for U.S. purposes.
Losing the Kurds will result in a weakened American hand in Baghdad and the rest of Iraq, where it will continue to contest regional powers like Iran for influence and where the United States will continue to be engaged as it attempts to prevent ISIS and its ilk from mounting a resurrection in the coming years. In the interim, to salvage the historical alliance between Kurdistan and the United States, Washington should establish—and enforce—red lines that prevent Baghdad from making further advances toward the undisputed Kurdish border area of Faysh Khabur, which Baghdad wants to control in order to economically suffocate the KRG. That could trigger another civil war that reverses U.S. security gains in recent years and opens up space for Iran to exert its influence and fill the gap left by the absence of American leadership.
Related Books
For their part, Iraq’s Kurds must look closer to home and collectively engage in a long, arduous, but worthwhile journey of institution-building and political reform to enhance self-sufficiency as well as the KRG’s political and security structures. The Kurdish leadership has few choices other than to go back to the drawing board. With technical, political, and financial support from the international community, including the United States, it should focus its energy and resources toward institution-building and good governance practices, including reconciliation between rival Kurdish parties. The biggest challenge facing the Kurds is a crisis of internal sovereignty and heightened tensions between its political parties—Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), its historic rival with whom it clashed throughout the 1990s.
The KDP and PUK will reconcile, as they have done before, and there are arbiters within the two rival parties that have long-standing, ongoing interactions that can ensure tensions do not escalate into another intra-Kurdish civil war. While the KDP managed to organize its rivals around a unified front for the referendum, party leaders must now realize that simply managing the fragmented political climate and the competing power centers between and within Kurdistan’s main parties is no longer sustainable. It is only through championing and implementing serious political reform that Kurdistan can overcome internal divisions and, potentially, once again make a push for independence in the coming years.
A stronger Kurdistan can also help build a stronger Iraq that advances the interests of the region and the international community. Evaluating and re-defining the nexus between Erbil and Baghdad could allow for a common national framework that revives the relationship between citizen and state. This will require that equitable, just, and sustained power-sharing arrangements become firmly entrenched within Iraq’s fragile political system. Otherwise, aspirations for Kurdish statehood will continue to disrupt and divide an Iraqi state that has a plethora of other challenges ahead, some existential and generational.
