Post-mission questions remain
RISK OF POST-ISIL CHAOS IN IRAQ CASTS NEW LIGHT ON CANADA’S SUPPORT FOR KURDS
The threat of political chaos looms over the imminent defeat of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Mosul, fuelling fear of a dramatically different — and deadly — use for Canada’s military support for Kurdish peshmerga forces.
Much of the potential upheaval revolves around whether Iraq’s disparate Sunni and Shia populations can finally set aside their differences and come together in some sort of reconciliation.
But many are also watching to see whether the Kurds plan to demand independence from the rest of Iraq, as their leaders — whose arguments for separation echo Canada’s own sovereigntist movement — have promised.
The Kurds have already made it clear they are ready to fight for socalled “disputed territory” that the peshmerga have liberated from ISIL, but whose ownership is claimed by both Baghdad and Erbil.
All of which sets up potentially awkward questions for Canada and the federal government, which has thus far said little about the potential long-term effects of its mission to wipe out ISIL.
The Kurds in northern Iraq have enjoyed a degree of self-rule since 1991, when the West established nofly zones to stop a bloody campaign by Saddam Hussein’s forces that killed thousands, mostly civilians.
That de facto autonomy became official after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which saw a new constitution enshrine the Kurds’ right to self-government within a unified Iraq.
But persistent tensions appear ready to come to a head as Kurdish president Masoud Barzani has promised a referendum on independence once ISIL is defeated.
The Kurdistan regional government’s top diplomat, Falah Mustafa, says the time has come for an “amicable divorce” from the rest of Iraq.
“The One Iraq policy is wrong,” he said last week in an exclusive interview with The Canadian Press.
“You tried it, it failed. Don’t insist on repeating a failed experience. We can’t live together within the same country. But we may be good neighbours.”
Mustafa said the Kurds have fulfilled their obligations in the constitution by remaining part of Iraq, but the central government in Baghdad has not fulfilled its part of the bargain by suspending budget transfers.
The money, which is supposed to account for 17 per cent of the national budget, has been held up despite the fact the Kurds have been fighting ISIL and hosting millions of refugees.
“We’re supposed to be Iraqis and we are asked to be Iraqis, but at the same time we do not benefit from being Iraqi,” he said.
The central government has said the payments were suspended because the Kurds broke a promise to sell their oil through Baghdad.
The differences between Kurds and the rest of Iraq go beyond money, Mustafa said.
“We have our own language, history, culture, music, geography, which is different from that of Arabs,” he said, before citing several examples of perceived slights by recent Iraqi leaders toward the Kurds.
None of which includes the pain and suffering Kurds experienced under Hussein’s “scorched-earth policy,” the effects of which Mustafa said continue to be felt today.
Many Kurds are in favour of statehood at some point, but some worry that the foundations for a successful state — including a strong economy and an end to corruption — have not been laid.