Kirkuk: PUK Sides with Iraq not KDP

Iraq is moving to take back Kirkuk from Kurdish control. Moon of Alabama has a good rundown, "Iraq - The End Of The Kurdish Independence Project." David Zucchino's report in The New York Times, "Iraqi Forces Said to Seize Oil Sites and Airport Outside Kirkuk," provides illuminating detail of the split between Masoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) that is unfolding during the battle to retake Kirkuk:

Military commanders in Baghdad said their troops had taken control of an industrial district on the western edge of Kirkuk, as well as a power plant and refinery adjacent to the oil fields outside the city. The military command also said government forces had secured control of a military airport west of the city.

Among the sites the Iraqi forces claimed was a military base known as K-1, northwest of Kirkuk. Iraqi officers interviewed near the base on Sunday said that American forces had used the facility in the past.

K-1 was the main military base in Kirkuk Province for Iraqi government troops when they abandoned their weapons and fled an assault by Islamic State militants.

On Monday, a Kurdish commander from the governing political party in the Kurdistan region said his forces had mounted a counterattack about 15 miles west of the city. He said reinforcements with “sophisticated weapons” had arrived to support Kurdish fighters in the area.

“They are preparing to liberate the area” from Iraqi forces, said the commander, Gen. Mohammed Raiger.

A statement released by the Kurdistan Region Security Council said pesh merga fighters had destroyed five American-supplied Humvees used by Iraqi forces, and would continue to resist them.

“This was unprovoked attack,” the statement said of the government military advance. The council is controlled by the Kurdistan Democratic Party, or K.D.P., led by Mr. Barzani, the region’s president.

But a leader of a rival Kurdish party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or P.U.K., said the party had agreed to vacate its military positions and hand them over to government forces early Monday morning. Wista Raool, commander of P.U.K. pesh merga forces south of Kirkuk, said the party sought to return the oil fields to the central government.

Mr. Raool accused Mr. Barzani and his party of “stealing” the oil from the central government. Many members of the P.U.K., which maintains its own pesh merga force, opposed the referendum vote because it was spearheaded by Mr. Barzani.

Iraqi military commanders said fighting broke out early Monday between advancing government forces and pesh merga fighters from Mr. Barzani’s faction, just as the P.U.K. forces were handing over their positions. The commanders spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

Thoughtful commentary on Kurdish independence included Masoud Barzani's political survival (he is acting as president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) after his term has expired) as a significant motive for holding the referendum. The PUK reluctantly supported the independence referendum but are not going to fight a war over it.

Big Win for Catalan Independence

The independence referendum yesterday in Catalonia was a success. The Catalan government announced that over 90 percent of almost 2.3 millions voters supported independence, this despite the mobilization of the Guardia Civil by the conservative prime minister Mariano Rajoy. Images beamed across the globe showed peaceful citizens attempting to vote being met by black-clad security officers in riot gear administering blows with truncheons and firing rubber bullets.

The old slogan from the streets during the WTO ministerial in Seattle came back to me -- "This is what democracy looks like!" It's a bad day for the Washington-Brussels consensus when Telesur can publish a headline like "Maduro to Spanish President Rajoy: Who's the Dictator Now?" and when The New York Times publishes within the first six paragraphs of its story ("Catalonia’s Independence Vote Descends Into Chaos and Clashes," Raphael Minder and Ellen Barry) that more than 750 people were injured in the crackdown.

Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont is looking for the European Union to condemn the violence, according to this morning's story by Raphael Minder, "Catalonia Leaders Seek to Make Independence Referendum Binding":

Mr. Puigdemont is committed to declaring independence, but he is also pressuring the international community to mediate in the conflict and to condemn the Madrid-ordered police clampdown.

“The European Union cannot now continue to look the other side,” Mr. Puigdemont said around midnight Sunday, although the European bloc has shown no sign so far that it was willing to support the separatist movement.

In a statement, the European Commission — the executive arm of the bloc — called for “unity and stability,” but it showed no sign that it would reverse its position and intervene on behalf of supporters of independence.

The commission described the dispute as “an internal matter for Spain,” and reiterated its warning that an independent Catalonia would not be part of the European Union.

Puigdemont will wait in vain for Brussels to say a cross word about Rajoy's crackdown. I can't help but note the contrast between Iraq and Spain. What would have happened if Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi had sent security forces into Kirkuk -- a city not part of the Kurdistan Regional Government, but one included in Masoud Barzani's independence referendum nonetheless -- to block the the vote? Almost certainly the European Commission would have criticized the use of violence, even though the Kurds illegally occupy the city and siphon off it's oil wealth.

What now? Puigdemont will declare independence in the next two days. Rajoy, joined by the feckless Socialists, will counter that the declaration is meaningless since the referendum was fraudulent -- unverified, illegal, its list of registered voters based on a contested census.

But with the number of injuries Catalans sustained, they will be united, at least in the near term, in the defense of their independence.

Sistani Says No to Kurdish Independence

The spiritual leader of Iraq's Shiite population, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has weighed in on Masoud Barzani's quixotic independence gambit for Iraqi Kurdistan. As reported this afternoon in the Washington Post by Mustafa Salim, Aaso Ameen Schwan and Tamer El-Ghobashy, "Iraq bans flights to Kurdish region as rift grows over independence bid":

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s tough reaction to the Kurdish ballot received a boost from the country’s highest Shiite religious authority, the influential Ayatollah Ali Sistani. In a sign of the growing anxiety in Iraq’s power centers over the vote, Sistani’s representative used his weekly Friday sermon to criticize the referendum as destabilizing to both Arabs and Kurds, arguing that it invites international meddling in Iraq’s affairs.

“I call on the government to consider the Kurds’ constitutional rights in their measures,” Sistani’s representative said, sounding a conciliatory tone. At the same time, Sistani rejected any challenge to Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Sistani has not appeared in public in several years, but he wields considerable influence in Iraq’s politics. An edict he issued in 2014 urging Shiites to take up arms in defense of Baghdad and southern Iraq during an Islamic State onslaught is largely credited with mustering a force strong enough to stem the extremist group’s blitz in the country.

As far as I can tell, Ayatollah Sistani's political instincts are close to infallible. If he says no to Kurdish independence, chances are an independent Iraqi Kurdistan is not going to happen.

Kurdish Overreach

It is becoming apparent that Masoud Barzani overreached with his independence vote. Without the vote, de facto Kurdish control of the disputed oil-rich city of Kirkuk could have continued indefinitely, including the pipeline to Turkey, as well as the lucrative border crossings with Turkey. With the vote, all of the above is now at risk. Granted, the Iraqis are refusing to negotiate at present; but if they do ever come to the table, there are plenty of demands they can make.

Iraq is set to make good on its threat to close the airspace of the Kurdistan Regional Government. As outlined by David Zucchino in "Iraq Escalates Dispute With Kurds, Threatening Military Action":

Beyond the threats of military action, Iraqi authorities have struggled to come up with any meaningful punishment for the Kurds for carrying out the referendum. But with its move to shut down flights to the landlocked region, Iraq seems to have found a weak point.

Iraqi aviation authorities notified foreign airlines on Wednesday that it would cancel all permits to land and take off from two international airports in the Kurdish region as of Friday afternoon. The action followed an ultimatum by Prime Minister Abadi on Tuesday for Kurdistan to surrender control of its two international airports or face a shutdown of international flights.

The Kurdish Regional Government said Wednesday that it would refuse to hand over the airports. The region’s transportation minister, Mawlud Murad, called the Iraqi ultimatum “political and illegal.” He said the airports were critical to the American-led coalition’s fight against Islamic State militants.

Kurdish officials had planned to send a delegation to Baghdad on Wednesday to discuss the issue, but the offer was rebuffed.

On Wednesday night, Mr. Murad said that the Kurdish government had agreed to hold talks with Iraq about placing Iraqi government observers at its airports.

There was no immediate public response from the Iraqi government, but Mr. Abadi, speaking to Parliament earlier, said Iraq would not negotiate with the Kurds unless they annulled the results of the vote.

He said he had warned the Kurds “of the consequences of the crisis with Kurdistan.”

“The preservation of the security of the citizens of the country is our priority,” he added.

At least six airlines — three Turkish companies, the Lebanese carrier Middle East Airlines, Royal Jordanian and Egypt Air — started notifying passengers on Wednesday that they were canceling regularly scheduled flights from the airports in Erbil and Sulaimaniya.

Baghdad can make good on its threat because the Iraqi civil aviation authority oversees all airports in the country, including the two international airports in the Kurdish region.

The threat to cancel landing and takeoff permits would force international airlines to cancel flights to those airports because insurance risks would be too high, according to Robert W. Mann Jr., a former airline executive who is now an industry consultant.

“The issue turns on which entity controls Kurdish region airspace and airports,” Mr. Mann said. “Unless and until the autonomous region is given that control, Iraq controls and can ban, blockade or embargo air service to airports under its control, much as Qatari airports have been embargoed or blockaded by nearby nations. Faced with such a restriction, most commercial airlines would comply, in part due to warnings by their insurers.”

The Turkish Consulate in Erbil said that Turkish airlines were working to increase their seat capacity in an effort to get all passengers out of the Kurdish areas before the flight ban took effect on Friday afternoon.

Without international flights, getting in or out of Kurdistan would require going through Turkey, Iran, Syria or Iraq, where there are also threats of a blockade.

The Iraqi Parliament urged the government on Wednesday to close off its land border with Kurdistan.

For years, the Kurdish authorities in Erbil have controlled their own borders with Turkey and Syria. Mr. Abadi has demanded that all borders return to full Iraqi central government control by Friday.

I suppose KRG could issue its own flight permits, and the Israelis would likely use them, as would the United States. Right now, with the support of Turkey and Iran, the Iraqi position is too strong for the U.S. If the embargo can be broken, I'm sure the thinking in Foggy Bottom goes, then Baghdad can be forced to negotiate.

KRG Independence Referendum Continuation of Caliphate's Political Project: Dismemberment of Iraq

You can usually infer what is troubling the Deep State by what is omitted from Foreign Policy's daily Situation Report. This morning there is zero mention of the ongoing story of Monday's independence referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan (there was a brief mention of it yesterday). The results of the referendum supposedly will be announced today. Already officials of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have leaked to the press that the vote is overwhelmingly "Yes" to independence.

The response from KRG's neighbors has been predictable. Turkey and Iraq are conducting military drills on KRG's northern border. Erdogan threatens war. Iran has banned flights to Iraqi Kurdistan. Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi has demanded the return of the international airports by Friday. Iraq's parliament has asked Abadi to send troops to secure the oil-rich multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk. KRG seized Kirkuk, basically in coordination with ISIS when the jihadis captured Mosul, back in 2014.

Mention of this by David Zucchino, in his story "Iraq Orders Kurdistan to Surrender Its Airports," fails to emphasize the simultaneity of the ISIS-Kurdish blitz:

As the Islamic State rose in northern Iraq in 2014, Kurdish fighters took advantage of the chaos, and in some cases of fleeing Iraqi troops, to expand the Kurdish territory by 40 percent.

We need to interpret the independence referendum as a continuation of the political program of the caliphate. The caliphate was always a GCC project designed to dismember sovereign nations aligned with Iran; an independent Kurdistan, or several independent Kurdish states, accomplishes this.

The U.S. position on the referendum is clearly duplicitous. While the U.S. is officially opposed, one can divine its tacit approval from The New York Times' serially sympathetic coverage of the referendum, captured in a previous Zucchino story, "As Kurds Celebrate Independence Vote, Neighbors Threaten Military Action." The Kurds are presented as victims of Iraqi genocide.

Often the most reliable way to ascertain U.S. policy is look at its organs of propaganda.