Kurdish army plan heightens Iraq tension

Dec. 23, 2009

BAGHDAD, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Plans by President Massoud Barzani of Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish enclave to merge the military forces of the two main Kurdish parties, known as "peshmerga," or those who face death, into a unified army is antagonizing the Kurds' Arab rivals.

That heightens the prospect of a major clash between the independence-minded minority Kurds and their traditional adversaries that could wreck U.S. plans to pull out its combat forces and leave behind a federal democratic state in place of Saddam Hussein's grotesque tyranny.

"With ethno-sectarian tensions reaching a fever pitch, Iraq's rival factions can be expected to rely more heavily on their traditional insurance policy: private militias," according to a Dec. 10 analysis by U.S.-based global security consultancy Stratfor.

"As the Shiite-dominated government continues to block the integration of its rivals into the security apparatus, the Kurds are unifying their peshmerga while many of Iraq's Sunnis continue to use the threat of an insurgency as leverage in getting their demands met.

"Should Iraq witness a resurgence of private militias amidst rising ethno-sectarian tensions, the U.S. exit strategy for Iraq could face serious complications."

Kurdish-Arab hostility centers on the disputed northern city of Kirkuk and its oil fields. The Kurds claim this is their territory and want it added to the three northern provinces they currently control.

This they envisage as a future Kurdish state with the Kirkuk oil fields, which contain as much as one-third of Iraq's crude reserves, as its economic base.

Iraqi Kurdistan already contains an estimated 10 percent to 15 percent of Iraq's known reserves. If the Kurds get their hands on Kirkuk they would thus control around 45 percent of the country's oil.

So the Baghdad government bitterly opposes relinquishing Kirkuk to the Kurds.

When Saddam was in power, he sought to push the Kurds out of Kirkuk and implant Arabs in their place. Since Saddam was overthrown in 2003, the Kurds have been forcing out the Arabs and moving their own people back into the flashpoint city.

In Nineveh province, the peshmerga of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the other main faction, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, have been steadily extending their area of control, encroaching on Arab turf.

This has led to several clashes that the Americans smothered before they could ignite wider hostilities. But with U.S. forces withdrawing, Nineveh has also become a flashpoint.

Tension is expected to rise as parliamentary elections scheduled for March 2010 loom closer.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is expected to visit the Kurdistan region soon to sign a deal with Barzani, president of the Kurdish Regional Government and the hereditary leader of the KDP.

According to political sources in Baghdad and Kurdistan, Maliki's government will recognize the new Kurdish army made up of the KDP and PUK peshmerga.

In return, the KRG will release funds collected from taxes and tariffs that Erbil has so far refused to hand over to the central government.

Maliki, who broke with his Shiite coalition partners in the summer, is driving to win re-election in the March polls. But he needs to muster some heavyweight support behind him to have any prospect of success.

He knows too that the Americans are desperate to resolve the issue of the Kurds, their staunchest allies in Iraq, and avert a civil war that would likely doom any prospect of a united Iraq.

Making a deal with the Kurds would strengthen al-Maliki's electoral prospects, but it would carry political dangers in the longer term that could backfire on him.

According to Syrian analyst Sami Moubayed, who closely follows events in Iraq, "Maliki does not have much room for maneuver, with the Iranians other regional players, who would never accept Kirkuk becoming Kurdish, breathing down his neck.

"Although the prime minister was brought to power by the Americans in 2006, his connections to the United States are not nearly as strong as those of the Kurds, particularly the Barzani clan."

Barzani declared Nov. 22 that he wants to create a unified Kurdish army incorporating the often fractious KDP and PUK militiamen -- each party controls around 100,000 -- under the authority of a Ministry of Peshmerga.

Its primary mission would be protecting Kurdistan, underlining the Kurds' unspoken ambition for an independent state.

"The KRG leaders hope this initiative will mend a political rift within Iraqi Kurdistan and give the KRG more strength in battling the Arab rivals in Iraq's central government," according to Stratfor.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2009/12/23/Kurdish-army-plan-heightens-Iraq-tension/UPI-28091261592144/.