Cole writes: "The Iraqi Army and its Shiite militia adjuncts have taken Kirkuk city and raised the Iraqi flag over the state house, taking down the Kurdistan flag."
Iraqi forces took full control of Kirkuk. (photo: RTE)
20 October 17
he Iraqi Army and its Shiite militia adjuncts have taken Kirkuk city and raised the Iraqi flag over the state house, taking down the Kurdistan flag. They also have an army base and oil fields in Kirkuk province, which they are returning to the control of Baghdad after it was annexed by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in 2014.
The Kurdistan paramilitary, the Peshmerga, are vowing that Arab Iraq “will pay a heavy price” for militarily retaking Kirkuk.
The Beltway Bandits are alleging that Iran was behind Baghdad’s retaking of the province of Kirkuk from the KRG. Iran played a role, but the allegation is just silly. Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi couldn’t have survived politically if he had not taken Kirkuk back, and it was the Baghdad government’s idea. Iraqi army infantry and armored divisions were deployed. The Shiite militiamen who fought alongside government troops had Iranian training and advice, but they were adjuncts, not the main force.
Since Donald Trump just tried to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization, the inside-the Beltway think tanks are suddenly finding it under every bed, along with consulting gold. It is true that Iran wants to take the Iraqi Kurds down a notch, for fear its own Kurds will get uppity. The IRGC is influential for the Badr Corps and the Interior Ministry in Iraq. But the Ministry of Defense reports to Abadi, and he was the driving force here.
The Kurds had predominated in three provinces in the old Iraq. After the Gulf War they more or less seceded and made their three provinces into one super-province. It was uneasily reintegrated into American Iraq from 2003. In September 2017, the Kurds tried to declare independence and they tried unilaterally to add a fourth Iraq province to their KRG. Baghdad would naturally react against this threat of secession. I am not saying Kurds don’t deserve their own state; I am saying that President Massoud Barzani of the KRG was being unrealistic. He heads a small territory that is landlocked and depends on others for export of its petroleum. Since those neighbors didn’t want the referendum, why be surprised at his difficulties? I was against the US dividing up Iraq when it was the occupying power, but now that Iraqis are sovereign it is up to them to negotiate their conflicts. I certainly I understand after everything Saddam Hussein did to the Iraqi Kurds why they want independence. And the downside of Abadi’s invasion of Kirkuk and the fleeing of Kurds from the province is that it reminds Kurds of how the old Baath army used to behave.
So how did all this happen?