Some colleagues asked me to offer my view of the future of Iraqi Kurdistan. Here is what I told them:
- A Martian could be forgiven if he arrived today on earth and concluded that Iraqi Kurdistan will be independent by November.
- President Barzani has promised a referendum by then and even the Martians know that Iraqi Kurds would vote overwhelmingly for independence if given free choice and opportunity.
- The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) case for independence is strong: Iraqi Kurds have been brutally treated by their own government, chased from their country and even attacked with chemical weapons; they have governed themselves sort of democratically for decades and treated minorities well by regional standards; they have fought the Islamic State courageously and welcomed people of all ethnicities displaced by the fighting.
- One of my pro-independence friends argues that Iraq is like former Yugoslavia: a failed state that has disappointed all its inhabitants and needs to dissolve into its constituent parts.
- Another friend asks why Washington would not welcome another stalwart and more or less democratic friend in the turbulent Middle East.
- So why do I think independence won’t happen?
- To make a long story short: the KRG lacks well-established borders, the means to defend itself, the needed internal political cohesion, the required economic resources, the good relations with its neighbors and the required support of the world’s great powers to become a sovereign state.
- Before explaining in depth, let me make an important distinction: political independence is something you declare. It is an expression of political will, sometimes unilateral.
- Sovereignty is something you acquire, largely through recognition by other states, which sometimes requires the defense or conquest of territory. The KRG already has a large measure of independence. What it lacks is sovereignty.
- President Barzani’s proposal is a classic process for achieving independence: a referendum followed by a unilateral declaration.
- It would do little or nothing to establish sovereignty.
- For that, the KRG would need to have in the first place well-established borders that none of its neighbors would contest.
- That is simply not the case. Baghdad has not and will not accept the KRG’s right to all the disputed territories the peshmerga seized in the confusion of 2014, when the Iraqi Army collapsed in Mosul and other parts of the north under Islamic State attack.
- The Iraqi Army today is in no condition to contest KRG control of Kirkuk, parts of Diyala and parts of Ninewa province, but Baghdad won’t accept the fait accompli either. A declaration of independence now would leave a giant unresolved border problem that sooner or later would likely be resolved by force.
- I don’t really see how the KRG will ever be able to defend itself from the rest of Iraq if Baghdad gets its act together, which to some degree it seems to be doing. In fact, there might be nothing so likely to unite Shia and Sunni Arabs in the rest of Iraq than a KRG declaration of independence.
- How does a KRG with a population of 5.2 million defend itself from an Arab Iraq of perhaps 28 million? Only by reaching an agreement that would likely involve the surrender or compromise of Kirkuk and other disputed territories.
- The KRG lacks the internal political cohesion for a deal of that sort and many other requirements of sovereignty and independence. Just last month a Sulamaniya delegation was in Baghdad forswearing any intentions to go for independence.
- The PUK and Gorran have no intention of letting President Barzani be the George Washington of the KRG, or even allow him an unconstitutional third term. He has locked the opposition Speaker out of parliament, which is unable to meet even to decide how the referendum will be organized.
- Kirkuk’s governor wants his province to become a region, separate at least initially from the KRG. Some in Sinjar are resisting incorporation into the KRG. One observer even sees signs of Balkanization of Kurdistan.
- Resources are also a problem. At oil prices of $100/barrel or above, KRG officials thought production of 500,000 bpd might enable them to replace all the money Baghdad was supposed to be sending. At $50/barrel, the production required is presumably close to 1 million bpd. Current exports are a bit more than 500,000 bpd.
- The KRG is an oil rentier state. Even with recent tax increases and reductions in subsidies, it has precious little revenue other than from oil.
- The consequences for the KRG economy are dramatic. Civil servants are going unpaid, the economy is in crisis and the enormous influx of people displaced by the Islamic State has increased the stress. The 1.4 million people on the government payroll, including those fighting the Islamic State, are being paid erratically.
- Kurdistan’s difficult neighborhood is an additional problem. All the KRG’s oil is exported to Turkey, which has greatly improved its relations with the Iraqi Kurds. But Ankara under current conditions is still unlikely in my opinion to welcome a KRG declaration of independence, for fear of incentivizing the Syrian Kurds or its own to head in the same direction.
- Iran is even harder over against KRG independence, for fear of what it would mean for its own province of Eastern Kurdistan, where the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is chasing Kurdish guerrillas and occasionally shelling across the border into the KRG.
- Syria no longer counts for much in regional politics, but KRG independence would not be a welcome move there either. The KRG could expect none of its neighbors to offer it diplomatic recognition and exchange of ambassadors.
- Most of the great powers will be even more resistant than the KRG’s immediate neighbors. The United States will fear that a referendum and independent Kurdistan would strengthen Russia’s case for the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as well as the annexation of Crimea and eventual annexation of Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, not to mention Bosnia’s Republika Srpska.
- Europe, in particular Germany, is hard over against independence.
- China would agree: it wants no precedents that Tibet might want to follow. Russia might be more amenable, though Moscow would be wise to contemplate the issue, since an independent Kurdistan is likely to be strongly pro-Western (and its own constituent republics might be getting ideas).
- To summarize: if you can’t expect recognition by any of your neighbors or your best friends, if you don’t have the money to pay the bills, if your internal politics are divisive and you will not be able to defend the borders you claim, my best advice is don’t try it.
- The Kurds would be wise to wait for a more auspicious moment. It may well come, possibly within the next five years. They will know the time is right when they have Washington and Baghdad’s concurrence, recognition by Iran and Turkey, revenue to cover their expenses, a functioning parliament and a leader who attracts support from Sulamaniyah as well as Erbil. Stranger things have happened.
What, my colleagues asked, if the KRG went ahead despite the circumstances. What would happen?
I answered maybe nothing, since without recognition of sovereignty declarations of independence evaporate pretty quickly. Kosovo’s in 1991 didn’t work, nor did the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad declared in 1946, another colleague noted. But it is also possible a Kurdish declaration of independence would spark a wider war in the Middle East, involving Iran and Turkey even more directly than the current conflict. That would not be good news.