The Iraqi Kurds are obviously preparing for the breakup of Iraq, an opportunity to create their homeland, a Kurdish nation, a dream perhaps bolstered by the US.
A fragmented Iraq will be vital to the US strategy of dominating the region as well as constricting - and even neutralising - the movements and activities of the Sunni insurgency. The current destabilising development in Iraq tells the US that its neo-cons' original plan to crush Iraqi opposition and make Iraq a vassal state has gone awry. The revised plan would be to physically marginalise the stubborn resistance of the Sunnis. It was not entirely surprising that the first place Condoleezza Rice visited during her May visit to Iraq (even before Baghdad) was the Kurdish city of Arbil, where she had "talks" with Masoud Barzani, the Kurdish regional leader.
By breaking Iraq up into 3 smaller states, and having an alliance with a new Kurdish nation of the oil-rich (Iraqi) north, and another with Dick Cheney’s favourite Iraqi, Ahmad Chalabi and the Shiites in a new state of the equally oil-rich south, the US may ensure the country’s rich oil assets remain in friendly (or at least friendlier) hands.
The breakup will also have the additional advantage of consigning the Sunni insurgents to a smaller (middle) Iraq, and truly well away from the Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti oil fields. Denying them both the northern and southern rich oil-fields will be an added bonus.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani have demanded that Kurds previously driven out by Saddam Hussein’s regime from Kirkuk must be allowed back without waiting for the new Iraqi constitution to be drafted.
He is in a bit of a rush, isn’t he? And the reason is clear!
Kirkuk’s position is such that it dominates a hugh slice of northern Iraq. The ethnic group that occupies it in an overwhelming way will naturally control it, making it a de facto city for that group. The Kurds have already declared Kirkuk as their future capital .. eh … only of their province within Iraq, of course (at least, for the time being).
When, not if, the breakup of Iraq happens, the new Kurdistan with a Kurdish dominated Kirkuk will be of some succulent and generous proportion. And among the Iraqis, only the Kurds would be favourable to a few American bases in the new Kurdistan.
The Americans want to have bases in that region to enhance its military posture and strategy, and the Kurds want to have the Americans besides them, because the Sunni Iraqis and neighbouring Turkey and Iran won't be too happy.
Related posts:
(1) The Break Up of Iraq?
(2) US in Iraq – The Beginning of The End
(3) US Laying Grounds for Kurdistan?
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