Semantics, repercussions and scenarios of the Kirkuk crisis

Introduction

The Kurdish issue in Iraq has a local, regional and international dimension in addition to the Kirkuk issue. Kirkuk's geography, demographics, historical stations and economic wealth are a ticking time bomb, which made anyone who has a word for Kirkuk may have a word for Baghdad.

The Kurds of the region in general and the Kurds of Iraq in particular, were a game of war and peace during the twentieth century, if agreed upon by the countries a Kurdish state fell here and a Kurdish uprising there, and if the countries differed, a Kurdish state was established here and a Kurdish uprising there, until the United States led the international system after the end of the Cold War, so there seemed to be a change in the Kurdish war and peace game to a game of stability in an unstable Middle East.

The Kurds, with the content of Security Council Resolution 688 of April 5, 1991, became a cornerstone and regional equivalent in the democratic changes underway in the Middle East since the end of the Cold War by linking democracy to federalism.

Accordingly, the US-led international system has supported the Kurds of Iraq with three international alliances, namely the Kuwait Liberation Alliance (1991), the Baghdad Occupation Coalition (2003), and the Steni Alliance against ISIS (2014).

Kirkuk, like the Kurdish issue, went through historic milestones, during the twentieth century, and after 2003 and the 2005 constitution, a road map was drawn up within Article 140.But Baghdad's failure to implement this article caused the disintegration of the Kurdish-Shiite alliance on which the political process was based.

Kurdistan sought to have the reality of Iraq as federal as its constitution and failed.It was expected, either that Kurdistan would declare independence after the withdrawal of America in 2011, or that it would move towards resistance as it used to be before 1990, or that it would disintegrate, Maliki would start the war against it to dismantle it but failed.

This may be one of the most important reasons that prompted Kurdistan to hold a referendum, after it forcibly controlled the areas of Article 140 of the Constitution.The survival of Kurdistan as a region and the middle of 15 provinces linked to Baghdad without turning into regions according to Article 119 of the Constitution, makes Kurdistan alien among the rest of the provinces, and under constant threat of disintegration, and this is confirmed by events.

But Kurdistan's move towards independence may be dangerous enough locally and regionally to push Baghdad and neighboring countries either to accept a unified federal Iraq, as is the declared American goal, or to turn to possible Kurdish, Sunni, and Shiite convergences.

While international support for Abadi is perhaps aimed at giving him a greater chance of winning the upcoming elections and curbing the escalation that Maliki and PMF extremists are seeking against Barzani, Kurdistan has entered a difficult situation after the referendum.

The prospect of Abadi's victory in the upcoming elections may lead him under Washington's auspices to negotiate with Massoud, but developments in the region may push for the postponement of the elections, which may open the door to another scene, if the events after entering Kirkuk do not turn to multiple scenarios.

Whatever the possible seniors that might push Baghdad into Erbil, perhaps repeating the scenario of Kuwait, or pushing Erbil to consider what happened to be an occupation and resisting it militarily, or the United States sponsoring a joint administration of the disputed areas, Abadi's behavior will probably determine which path the events of Kirkuk are headed.

Referendum crisis

The militias' disregard for religion, blood, the state and the constitution over the past fourteen years has prompted Kurdistan to perhaps disregard the referendum on the recklessness of the militias and the recklessness of the recklessness of virtue of the militias.

If the referendum is a local and regional problem, Iran's policies are a greater problem, and Barzani has pushed the referendum, as did Sunni Arabs before him, to cross the lines of Wilayat al-Hamra, and Maliki to describe the day of the referendum as a black day that will harm the stability of Iran and the whole axis of Shiism.

This may be evidence that the Kurdistan referendum has opened the door to a possible Iranian-American clash, Iran may have decided to enter Kirkuk as a decision announced by Abadi, and America may have decided to withdraw the Popular Mobilization Forces, a decision announced by Abadi.

With the exception of Iran, all the countries that rejected the referendum may know, perhaps, that Iran is the problem, not the referendum, and that preventing the repercussions of the referendum requires deterring Iran's policies.

In addition to Iran and America's entry into the crisis plan, the referendum also led to a Turkish-Iranian rapprochement with Baghdad out of fear of the birth of a Kurdish state in their geographical surroundings.

The past fourteen years have shown that Turkey and Iran converge when the American factor exists, and they fight when the American factor is absent.

The American factor is usually able to contain the agendas of Turkey and Iran, and vice versa. In addition, Iran's agenda in Iraq is different from its Turkish counterpart.Iran controls its agenda more than the domestic factor, unlike Turkey, whose foreign policy is controlled more by the local dimension than the international.This may gradually make Iraq more influential on both sides than affected by whatever the possible scenarios of the events in Kirkuk.

Barzani may have erred or was injured, intentionally or unintentionally, but Barzani opened the door by referendum to a new Kurdish-Iraqi-regional and international era, coinciding with a strategy of Trump against Iran's regional influence, hence Iran's reaction and entry into Kirkuk in mid-October 2017, under the auspices of Qassem Soleimani.

Baghdad enters the areas of Article 140

Soleimani failed to split the Kurdish ranks or prevent the Kurdistan Region from proceeding with the referendum, even though he had spent five days and nights before the referendum, moving from one Kurdish province to another and from meeting with a Kurdish leader to another.

Perhaps, Soleimani did not fail in a regional mission after 2003, just as he failed to prevent the Kurdistan Region from referendum, but he did not lose hope and returned after the referendum and remained adamant that the Peshmerga should withdraw from Kirkuk.

While observers expected the Peshmerga to resist any advance of Baghdad's power, Soleimani finally succeeded in splitting the Kurdish ranks, and so it seems, and the Peshmerga of Pavel Talabani withdrew quickly and unexpectedly from Kirkuk, on the night of 15-10-2017.

The unexpected withdrawal led to violations, burning of houses, killings and panic of people, and tens of thousands of them were displaced towards Erbil and Sulaymaniyah.The withdrawals, which also included Barzani's party Peshmerga, continued from all areas under Article 140 along the Mandali Sinjar line.

It is not yet clear where the new lines of contact between Baghdad and Erbil will be, whether they are the lines of liberation of Mosul 2016, or the lines of entry of ISIS in 2014, or the lines of 2003.

This could mean that the areas seized have effectively become hotlines between Baghdad and Erbil on the one hand, and Iran and America on the other.

Possible scenarios

First

Camp David scenario

Pavel Talabani's withdrawal from Kirkuk may have violated Washington's 1998 understanding between him and Barzani's party, and this may make him face great challenges with the Korean, Barzani and American people, due to the association of specific ignorance of Talabani's party with Iran.This may lead to the targeting of these parties on the one hand, and on the other hand, to the end of the historical alliance between Barzani's party and Talabani, and the emergence of new Kurdish alliances.Perhaps 32 Kurdish parties rejected Baghdad's conditions for dialogue on the one hand, and on the other hand called on Change and Jamaat-e-Islami, and Barham Salih, to establish A transitional government, part of the Kurdish Kurdish movement after the Kirkuk crisis.

These Kurdish repercussions may indicate that Kurdistan, by withdrawing and not fighting the forces of Baghdad, has made painful concessions against the dream of its people, Abadi must meet them with similar Shiite concessions if he wants Iraq to settle within the ceiling of the constitution.Barzani preceded Abadi twice, once by crossing the red lines of the velayat-e faqih, and once by withdrawing and not fighting his forces, and Abadi may have returned them twice.

If Abadi has imposed what he calls the law and constitution against the Peshmerga in the areas of Article 140, then if he is constitutional in his methodology, he must implement the plan to enforce the law and the constitution against the Popular Mobilization Forces.The implementation of the law enforcement step on the Popular Mobilization Forces militias affiliated with Wilayat al-Faqih may open the door to the repercussions of a policy in Baghdad similar to those of Kurdistan after entering Kirkuk, including a new Shiite Shiite alliance away from the dominance of the Popular Mobilization Forces affiliated with Iran.

If this theory is true, add that Barzani and Massoud are Washington's allies, the United States may sponsor a joint administration of the disputed areas between Erbil and Baghdad, as it did between Sadat and Begin in the 1978 Camp David Accords.

secondly

(Kuwait scenario)

International Coalition Against Iranian Militias

Entering Kirkuk may have split the ranks of the Kurds, postponed their quest for the state, halted the Sunnis' move toward federalism, and gave Abadi a victory, but after the ISIS war he opened the door to another war.The withdrawal of the Peshmerga in front of the Popular Mobilization Forces and Iraqi forces from Kirkuk without a fight and Ashraf Soleimani publicly, may resemble the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Mosul without a fight against ISIS under Soleimani's secret supervision.

The danger here is that Iran will be able to transfer chaos after Kirkuk to Erbil, that is, to the only zone of stability in Iraq in 2003.This may represent a serious threat to the strategy of the United States, represented by the loss of a historical ally represented by the Kurds perhaps, on the one hand, and on the other hand, Turkey, another ally of the United States, may make it disintegrate Kurdistan in the face of a greater danger than the threat of federalism or the Kurdish state, as Kurdistan will be captive to the chaos of Daesh and Ma'ish and BKK, all of which consider Turkey a strategic enemy.

The behavior of the White House, the State Department, and the international coalition during and after the invasion of Kirkuk is reminiscent of similar U.S. behavior with Saddam before his invasion of Kuwait. America's refusal to talk about Iran's invasion of Kirkuk despite its confirmation, and its statements of non-intervention between the two sides, may open the door to a possible US-Iranian clash in the disputed areas, simultaneously, with the announcement of Trump its strategy against its influence in the region.

This could mean that the fallout from the fall of Mosul may resemble the collapse of Kirkuk.Tek Tillerson today called for the exit of Iran's militias from Iraq.That is, Soleimani tested the strategy of Trump 60 hours after its release, by exploiting the weakness of Abadi and Barzani's flanks because of groups affiliated with Soleimani.

If pro-Iranian forces entered Erbil, the nineties cast a shadow over the race again and entered into the scenario of Kuwait and the possible no-fly zone, and the two million Kurdish and Sunni Arab displacement to Turkey, and for every incident in this regard.

fourthly

Scenario of Algeria 1975

But the scenario of entering Erbil may carry with it another possibility, reminiscent of the scenario of America abandoning the Kurds in favor of an Iraq far from Iran, as it did in the 1975 agreement, when America abandoned the Kurds to bring Iraq closer to Iran, which was Washington's ally at the time.

fifthly

Scenario of Kurdistan Resistance

The statements of Kosart Rasul and Sheikh Jaafar, commander of the 70th Force of the National Union, as well as those of Hoshyar Zebari and Masoud Bazani, who called for the intervention of the international community, a call supported by Zalmay Khalilzad and other American diplomats, all indicate that they will not give up the referendum, that Kirkuk is occupied and that they will restore it.

The harsh Alton Kobri clashes between the Peshmerga and the PMF were also a lesson for the PMF.A quick look at the Mandali Sinjar line gives the impression that the disputed areas may indeed be areas of military conflict that sometimes extend towards Kurdistan, and sometimes towards the neighboring Sunni Arab provinces of Kurdistan.

Clashes between the two parties may evolve to move the position from the scenario of joint administration to the scenario of resistance, which may intensify at times and ease again depending on the course of the commissions between the parties, and may eventually be resolved by the alliances of the parties and their resources.

The bottom line

The most likely factor in the scenario of Camp David, Algeria, Kuwait or the resistance is Abadi's behavior more than that of other parties.

The more Abadi manages to control the military movement, move away from the zero clash, and activate the constitution, the more the scene turns towards the best scenario of joint administration, i.e. Camp David Ciario.

Just as Abadi lost the ability to control the PMF, the more the scene turns toward the worst-case scenario, which will force the United States to push for an international coalition against the militias, the Kuwait scenario.

Perhaps it is the unexpected scenario among the rest of the scenarios, and may call for Barzani's resignation, and may be indicated by arrest warrants for Kurdish leaders issued by Iraqi courts, but the question of whether Shiites are able to revolt against Wilayat al-Faqih, the answer may be yes.

Whatever the scenarios, the referendum and its repercussions, which began in the areas of Article 140, will open up a historic opportunity for Sunni Arabs to move towards federalism according to Article 119 by negotiating with Baghdad, or by imposing a fait accompli in their provinces with the support of the international community.

Author Dr.Omar Abdul Sattar Mahmoud

الكاتب د.عمر عبدالستار محمود