In order to try to provide a profound analysis of what has happened in Iraqi Kurdistan and offer not one, but two, different, but complimentary views, on this topic: Pepe Escobar’s and Alexander Mercouris’ (in alphabetical order). Enjoy!
Kirkuk redux was a bloodless offensive. Here’s why
by Pepe Escobar for the Asia Times
Not only are the Kurds in Iraq eternally riven, but the KRG knows it needs its oil pipeline to Turkey to remain open. And then there is the role played by a certain Iranian negotiator to consider
The Battle of Kirkuk lasted less than 24 hours. In a lightning – and mostly bloodless – offensive, the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) retook control of the North Oil Co. and North Gas Co. headquarters, the K1 military base, the Bai Hassan oil field, and two domes of the Kirkuk oil field on Monday.
Baghdad did what it had previously said it would do: reestablish federal authority over the key strategic assets of Kirkuk province, which had been controlled by the Kurdish Peshmerga since the 2014 Islamic State offensive.
But why did it take only 24 hours? There are two main reasons. One, the eternal, internal split between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), led by wily tribal schemer Masoud Barzani, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party of the late Jalal Talabani; and two, a brokered deal for Baghdad’s advance. The Kurdish Peshmerga described the takeover as “a flagrant declaration of war” and vowed that Baghdad will pay a “heavy price.” That’s largely rhetorical.
The Pentagon – which has 10,000 US troops still in Iraq and is allied with Baghdad in the fight against ISIS but kept close links with the Kurds during the 2003-2008 occupation years – has been essentially helpless. The “coalition” the Pentagon essentially leads against ISIS insisted clashes between Peshmerga and Iraqi government forces were a mere “misunderstanding,” and stressed it is not supporting any of the belligerents.
How did we get here? Follow the oil.
Kirkuk province was occupied by the Peshmerga in 2014 as the Iraqi Army collapsed and ISIS occupied Mosul and its environs.
The KRG has been autonomous, in practice, ever since Daddy Bush imposed a no-fly zone on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq after the 1990-91 Gulf War. It is composed of three provinces: Sulaymaniya, Erbil and Dohuk. Annexing Kirkuk is pure wishful thinking.
Still, Kirkuk was included in the recent referendum on independence (92% said “yes”), which Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has repeatedly stated violated the Iraqi constitution as the Kurds “chose their personal interests over Iraq’s interests.”
Kirkuk is largely mixed: there are Kurds, Arabs (both Sunni and Shi’ite), Turkmen and Assyrian Christians. Historically, Kurds consider Kirkuk as “our Jerusalem” and refuse the 1960s-1970s “Arabization” that made it more Iraqi.
The 2005 Iraqi constitution – with predominant Shi’ite and Kurdish input, and largely influenced by Washington – included the possibility of a referendum in Kirkuk. This referendum never happened. What happened after 2014 was some “soft” ethnic cleansing by Barzani: nearly three million non-Kurds were “encouraged” to flee Kirkuk province.
The holy of the holies, once again, is oil. Kurdistan’s energy reserves are estimated at around 45 billion barrels of oil and 150 trillion cubic meters of gas. Both the KRG and Baghdad each export roughly 565,000 barrels of oil a day to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan in Turkey – not far off the volume of OPEC member Qatar. Major clients are Israel and Germany, with Turkey only in sixth place. The KRG’s fields are largely operated by foreigners such as Genel and Gulf Keystone, in addition to Gazprom, Rosneft and Chevron.
There’s no Route B for Kurdish energy exports. When the Baghdad oil route was seized by ISIS in 2014, the Peshmerga captured several oil fields around Kirkuk and the KRG built its own alternative pipeline to the Turkish border.
What makes matters even more complex is that for the past three years Baghdad has had no choice but to use the new Kurdish route for its exports to Turkey, even as it brands Kurdish oil exports illegal. Now Baghdad is vowing to immediately rebuild the federal pipeline, totally bypassing Kurdistan.
So the KRG, to survive, depends on the oil-to-Turkey connection. In the wake of the referendum, their situation is beyond critical. Ankara has been adamant: don’t even think about independence. Erdogan has all but spelled out that he could shut down the pipeline at any minute. Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag has announced the closure of Turkish airspace to the KRG, stressed Iraqi territorial integrity, qualified the referendum as illegal, and endorsed Baghdad’s offensive on Kirkuk. Tehran has also given its backing to Baghdad imposing a full land and air blockade on the KRG.
Soleimani did it
The non-Battle of Kirkuk featured only a few clashes between the ISF and the Peshmerga. A key reason is the internal Kurdish split. The Peshmerga actually accused a faction of the PUK of “plotting” against the Kurds and of committing “a great and historic treason.”
Barzani – technically the commander-in-chief of all Kurdish armed forces – did see the writing on the wall. He ordered the Peshmerga not to attack the ISF, only to react, “using every power,” according to his assistant Hemin Hawrami.
Prime Minister al-Abadi took no time to appoint an Arab politician, the current leader of the Arabic Council in Kirkuk Rakan Saeed, to replace Kurdish Najmaldin Karim as the governor of the province. Al-Abadi had previously instructed the ISF to “cooperate with the Peshmerga and avoid confrontations, and to protect all civilians.”
The going really gets tough when it comes to the role of the Hashd al-Shaabi, the People Mobilization Units (PMUs) that fight side by side with the ISF.
Karim Nuri, a commander with the Hashd al-Shaabi, told Kurdish news agency Rudaw that anyone fighting against the ISF is “the same as ISIS.”
Enter the nefarious Zalmay Khalilzad, a.k.a. “Bush’s Afghan” and former US Ambassador to Iraq, furiously tweeting that Iran’s “IRGC-backed militia led by terrorist Mahdi Mohandis has begun an assault on Kirkuk.” Mohandis is the deputy head of Hashd al-Shaabi.
Khalilzad is spinning a narrative that will be digested as fact all across the Beltway – that the PMUs are “using Abrams tanks provided by the US to the Iraqi armed forces against the Peshmerga.” He even asked Trump, rhetorically: “Shouldn’t we disable these tanks to prevent their use by Quds force proxies?”
Shwan Shamerani, commander of the Peshmerga’s second brigade in Kirkuk, actually doubled down, stating that “the Iraqi army and the Hashd al-Shaabi are not the only state that are attacking us. We have intelligence with 100 percent accuracy that there are also the Iranian army and the Revolutionary Guards among them.”
A Hashd al-Shaabi operative clarified that the PMUs especially want to protect the Shi’ite majority areas of Kirkuk. Half of the Turkmen who also claim Kirkuk are Shi’ites; Turkmen are currently about 10% of a total population of 1.2 million.
He stressed that the Hashd al-Shaabi take their orders from Baghdad – from Hadi al-Amiri, the head of the Badr organization, which is loosely linked with the IRGC, and from Mohandis, the commander of the PMUs, but not from Iran. “We had hoped that we would get support from neighboring countries but this didn’t happen,” he said. “We get all our equipment from the central government.”
The key, irrefutable fact on the ground is that the PMUs work side by side with the ISF. And there’s nothing the Pentagon can do about it.
The impotence of the US$1 trillion US Warfare State is reflected in Pentagon spokeswoman Laura Seal’s wording: despite the KRG’s “unfortunate decision to pursue a unilateral referendum… we continue to support a unified Iraq.”
And that leads us to the definitive answer to why the Battle of Kirkuk was essentially bloodless, as Asia Times confirmed with Baghdad diplomats. It has to do with Washington’s supreme bête noire: Tehran.
Qassem Soleimani, the head of the IRGC’s elite Quds Force, is considered a “terrorist” all across the Beltway. But it was this “terrorist” who brokered a complex deal between the PUK, the PMUs and Baghdad to make the Kirkuk takeover as smooth as possible. Way beyond the fight against ISIS, Soleimani has been a master negotiator with Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds alike – no distinctions. No wonder Barzani had to retreat. No one wanted an Iraqi civil war.
What we have just witnessed is the near breakout of warfare between two alleged US “clients” in Southwest Asia. And yet civil war – along with the balkanization of Iraq – was prevented. The facts on the ground speak for themselves.
——-
Collapse in Iraqi Kurdistan: US’s Plan C fails before it begins
by Alexander Mercouris for The Duran
On 6th October 2017 – less than two weeks ago – I wrote a lengthy article for The Duran explaining how the US, having failed to achieve regime change in Syria (“Plan A”) and having failed to engineer the partition of Syria on sectarian lines (“Plan B”), was now seeking to use the Kurds to destabilise both Iraq and Syria by supporting the setting up of quasi-independent Kurdish statelets in these two countries, in order to stem the rise of Iranian influence there.
In that article I predicted that this Plan C would fail, just as Plans A and B have done, and that its effects would be to alienate Turkey further from the US, bring Iran, Turkey, Syria and Iraq closer together, and would isolate the Kurds in a region where they were already in danger of becoming over-extended.
What I did not imagine when I wrote that article was that it would take all of two weeks for Plan C to start to fail. This was because I seriously overestimated the strength and coherence of the Kurds, especially those of Iraq, whose Peshmerga militia it is now clear was grossly overrated, not just by me but by many other observers of the region.
Iraq’s effortless recovery of Kirkuk, and the rapid collapse of Peshmerga resistance in the surrounding areas of the city came to me – as I suspect it did to many others – and as it certainly did to the US and to the Kurds themselves, as a total surprise.
I suspect the main reasons for this collapse are threefold:
(1) The Peshmerga does not appear to be the formidable and disciplined force it once was or was reputed to be.
In saying this some qualification is needed since the Peshmerga has never really been tested in a serious way ever since Saddam Hussein’s defeat in 1991, and it consistently failed when pitted against his army both before and after that defeat.
However it did appear following the collapse of the Iraqi state following the 2003 US invasion that the Peshmerga was the only coherent ‘Iraqi’ force left in the country, and the fact that in 2014 ISIS appeared to make little headway against it, whereas whenever the US trained Iraqi army fought ISIS it immediately collapsed, reinforced that impression.
Possibly the long years of apparent peace in Iraqi Kurdistan made the Peshmerga complacent, and perhaps its internal cohesion has been undermined by the notorious corruption of the Barzani regime it answers to; or perhaps the Peshmerga was never as strong as it seemed, and the impression of strength it gave was simply a mis-impression caused by the earlier weakness of all other Iraqi players.
Regardless, the contrast between the abject rout of the Peshmerga units in Kirkuk and in the surrounding region which has taken place over the last few days, and the fanatical resistance put up over many months by ISIS in Mosul speaks for itself.
(2) The Iraqi army has been transformed, and is a far more determined and effective force than it was just three years ago.
As to that, the Iraqi army’s victory in the face of fanatical resistance against ISIS in Mosul, and its effortless victory against the Peshmerga in Kirkuk and the regions surrounding it, speak for themselves.
I will here express the view that the reason for this sudden dramatic improvement in the combat capability of the Iraqi army is not the flood of US weapons and training it has received since its ignominious collapse before ISIS in 2014. After all the US has been trying to rebuild the Iraqi army in its own image continuously ever since it invaded Iraq in 2003, with no indication prior to 2014 that it was achieving any success.
Rather I suspect that the reason for the Iraqi army’s transformation since 2014 is the less visible but far more effective help it has had since 2014 from Iran.
The result is that though the Iraqi army still uses US weapons, it acts in battle with a determination and discipline it never showed before.
(3) The failure of the US to support the Peshmerga.
I suspect that this is the single most important reason for the Peshmerga’s sudden collapse.
As I wrote in my article of 6th October 2017, I think it is most unlikely Masoud Barzani, Iraqi Kurdistan’s ‘President’, would have dared to hold the independence referendum that he called without receiving at least an amber light from Washington.
That probably made him and the Peshmerga leadership think that the US would step in to save them if Iraq reacted in a way that put them in jeopardy. This presumably explains why they seem to have failed to prepare even in the most basic way for the Iraqi army attack, which Baghdad publicly warned them was coming.
In the event when the Iraqi attack came the US did nothing, and in its absence Peshmerga resistance disintegrated.
This touches on a point I made previously in my article of 6th October 2017. Though there is no doubt of the support of many US officials in Washington for Plan C, it has never been fully discussed and agreed within the US government and there is no consensus behind it, so that it is doubtful that President Trump even knows about it, whilst Secretary of State Tillerson – who almost certainly does know about it – is openly hostile to it.
The result was that when the Iraqi army marched on Kirkuk there was no agreement within the US government about what it should do about it, and in the absence of any such agreement the US did nothing.
The result was that without US help and with most of the local population opposing its presence and supporting the return of the Iraqi army the Peshmerga simply melted away.
There were almost certainly other factors behind the Peshmerga’s collapse.
There has for example been much discussion – especially amongst the Kurds – about divisions between the Kurds themselves being the cause of the collapse. Amidst the angry recriminations there has inevitably also been some talk of betrayal. I am not sufficiently familiar with internal Kurdish politics to comment about this.
Another factor to which however I give far more credence concerns the role of Iran.
Whilst the last two years have shown that the Russians are the masters of military strategy and technology in this region, it is the Iranians with their exceptional knowledge of the region who are through their various intelligence and security agencies the region’s undisputed masters of covert activity.
To be clear this is an essential tool of statecraft, particularly in this region, and the fact that the Russians and the Iranians have over the last two years been working together with their differing but complimentary skill-sets is the reason why they have so successfully swept all before them.
The nature of covert ‘cloak-and-dagger’ activity is that it is largely invisible, but inevitably there are already reports circulating that Iran’s General Soleimani,- the commander of the IRGC’s Quds’ Force and the reputed mastermind behind all this activity – has been seen in the region, doing whatever it is people like him do.
Whatever General Soleimani and the Iranians have been up to, it is a virtual certainty that they were acting in concert with the Turks, who as I discussed in my article of 6th October 2017 were also incensed – and with good reason – by Barzani’s independence referendum, and who would therefore have been more than willing to help the Iranians and the Iraqis cut Barzani and the Iraqi Kurds down to size.
The Turks have considerable influence in Iraqi Kurdistan, which is dependent on Turkey economically, and they no doubt backed whatever threats and blandishments General Soleimaini may have made to Kurdish commanders and officials with threats and blandishments of their own.
Given that some of these Kurdish commanders and officials have financial interests that connect them to Turkey, threats and blandishments coming from Turkey might have weighed on them heavily. Regardless they will have been left in no doubt that in any confrontation between the Peshmerga and the Iraqi army, the Iraqi army would have the backing of Turkey as well as of Iran.
Given that Iran and Turkey are by many orders of magnitude the two strongest powers in this region, any Kurdish commanders or officials hearing that would have known that in a contest with the Iraqi army the Peshmerga would not prevail.
However if Kurdish divisions and the undercover activities of General Soleimani and the Turks doubtless played their role in causing the Peshmerga collapse, the overriding reality is that the Peshmerga turned out to be much weaker than expected, the Iraqi army turned out to be much stronger than expected, and the US failed to take action to help the Kurds.
As to the last point, I would refer to a prediction I made in my article of 6th October 2017, which has been proved true far sooner than I ever expected
…….by positioning themselves as the allies or even the proxies of the US and Israel, the Kurds have upset the major regional powers – Iran, Syria, Iraq and Russia – whilst alarming Turkey, which is now threatening to impose an economic blockade on Iraqi Kurdistan.
If the Kurds are not careful they could find themselves isolated in the region, with all the major regional powers uniting against them.
Should that happen there is no guarantee that the US would ride to their rescue. On the contrary the recent experience of the Middle East suggests that relying on the US to do so would be a serious mistake.
(bold italics added)
What are the implications of these latest events and of the Iraqi recapture of Kirkuk?
Firstly, the Kurdish position in Iraq has been very significantly weakened, though it has not collapsed completely, whilst the position of the Iraqi government in Baghdad has been very considerably strengthened.
The Iraqi army has driven the Kurds out of Kirkuk, a city where Kurds are a minority, and out of various areas of predominantly Arab population.
The Iraqi army has not however challenged the Kurds within the own established territory where they are the majority. It is unlikely that it has any plan to do so, and were it to do so it might find Peshmerga resistance to be much tougher in defence of ethnic Kurdish territory than it was in Kirkuk.
However loss of Kirkuk and the oil rich region around it deprives Iraqi Kurdistan and the Barzani regime of a key source of revenue. This has decisive implications for the “independent Kurdistan” project. With Kirkuk and its oil an independent Kurdistan cut out of Iraq’s northern regions looked economically viable (there was even some wild talk of it becoming a Kurdish Dubai). Without Kirkuk and its oil it no longer does.
What that means is that though the Kurds remain a potentially important force within Iraq, the idea of an independent Kurdistan separated from Iraq is no longer practical, with the balance of power within Iraq having shifted decisively in favour of the Iraqi government in Baghdad.
Though it may take some time for the Kurds in Iraq to accept this – and in the case of some of them they may never do so – over time, urged on by Iran, Turkey and Russia, most of them probably will accept it.
That points to an eventual rapprochement between the Iraqi Kurds and the Iraqi government in Baghdad, one which possibly gives the Kurds a measure of autonomy but which nonetheless keeps Iraq intact within its current internationally recognised borders.
That makes the consolidation and stabilisation of the Iraqi state within its internationally recognised borders a much more likely prospect than appeared to be the case just a year ago.
Moreover this will be an Iraq aligned with Iran and anchored in a regional system consisting of Iran, Iraq and Syria, and probably in time Turkey also, rather than an Iraq aligned with the Saudis and the Sunni states of the Gulf, as was the case with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
Secondly, the loss of Kirkuk puts in jeopardy the Syrian part of the US’s Plan C.
The supplies the US has being sending to the Kurds in Syria – including the vast arms supplies I discussed in my article of 6th October 2017 – have been going to the Kurds in Syria via Iraqi Kurdistan, with most of the supplies flown by the US to the Iraqi Kurdish capital Erbil and transported by road from there to Syria across Iraq.
With ISIS on the brink of defeat and with Iraq now in possession of Kirkuk, US leverage on Iraq has significantly weakened.
With Iraq now even more closely aligned with Iran and Syria than before, the extent to which Iraq will continue to tolerate this traffic across its border from Iraqi Kurdistan to Syrian Kurdistan must be open to doubt.
Whilst there is an alternative route via Turkey – one which the US has used – the Turks are likely to draw a line at large-scale arms supplies to the YPG – the leftist Kurdish militia which leads the Kurds in Syria – which they brand an anti-Turkish terrorist organisation.
Whilst it would be an exaggeration to say that the Kurds in Syria are totally cut off from all supply by the US, the extent and sustainability of that supply is now in doubt.
More to the point, the Kurds both in Iraq and Syria have now been provided with a lesson about the limits of US support for them.
If Barzani and the Peshmerga leadership in Iraq did gamble on US support when they called their referendum, then that gamble has obviously failed.
Both the Kurds and the US have in fact overestimated each other. The Kurds in Iraq and Syria made their calculations based on assumptions of US support for them if the Iraqis or the Syrians attacked them. The US made its calculations based on assumptions that the Kurds would be able to defend themselves and would not need US support if attacked.
Both assumptions have turned out to be wrong.
The Kurds in Syria – politically more sophisticated than those in Iraq, and facing potentially even more powerful and dangerous adversaries – seem to be learning the lesson.
Even before the debacle of Kirkuk there were reports that some Kurdish leaders in Syria were becoming concerned that the Kurds in Syria were getting too close to the US, and were becoming over-dependent on the US.
The US’s failure to come to the rescue of the Kurds in Iraq in Kirkuk will have reinforced those concerns.
Unsurprisingly it seems the Syrian Kurds are now trying to hedge their bets, turning increasingly to the other Great Power – Russia – for help to get them out of their current predicament. Some reports say that one of their top officials – Sima Hamo, the commander of the Kurdish led ‘Syrian Democratic Forces’ – visited Moscow last weekend for talks with Russian leaders.
If the Kurds in Syria really are turning to Moscow for help then it is the clearest possible sign that they realise the extent of their own overreach and that the project of an independence Kurdistan separated from northern Syria is unsustainable. The Russians are far too committed to President Assad’s government in Damascus ever to agree to it, and the Kurds know it.
The Russians have however in the past shown sympathy to Kurdish aspirations, and they have recently floated ideas about some form of autonomy for the Kurds in Syria.
Possibly it is these ideas that the Syrian Kurds are now looking to build upon. If so then the Russians will make it clear to them that a precondition for doing so is negotiations in good faith between the Kurds and the Syrian government in Damascus.
Needless to say should such negotiations for a general settlement of the Kurdish question in Syria ever take place – possibly within the framework of the Astana talks – then the US’s Plan C for Syria will have unequivocally failed, before it has properly speaking even begun.
Already there are signs of recriminations in the West over this latest Middle East debacle.
In Britain the Daily Telegraph – a reliable voice for the neocon regime change lobby in the US and Britain – is already complaining bitterly about the ‘betrayal’ of the Kurds.
More harsh words were said on this same subject in a Press TV television debate which I attended by a US journalist who is a strong supporter of the Trump administration. Significantly it was Iran that he blamed for this turn of events, even though it was the Iraqi army – nominally still allied to the US – not Iran, which drove the Kurds out of Kirkuk.
In truth what the rapid unravelling of Plan C shows is the rapid decline of US power in this region.
Whereas once the US was this region’s undisputed master, now every step the US takes – whether it be its attempt to use the Kurds to destabilise Syria and Iraq so as to stem the rise of Iranian influence there, or its reneging on its nuclear agreement with Iran – seems only to alienate the region further from the US, and to accelerate the decline of US influence there.
Suffice to say that Iran – the US’s prime bugbear in this region – now has good relations with Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Pakistan, as well as with the Central Asian states. By contrast the US is on bad terms with all of them.
The region is being reshaped in spite of the US and contrary to its wishes, and there seems to be increasingly little it can do about it.
“Peshmerga was the only coherent ‘Iraqi’ force left in the country, and the fact that in 2014 ISIS appeared to make little headway against it”
There is quite enough evidence that the Kurdish armed groups collaborated with so-called ISIS (are we really still going to label the Western mercenaries and special forces that invaded Syria/Iraq with that risible abbreviation?).
The West invaded Syria and Iraq for Israel. That’s it. Everything else is propaganda to misdirect from that basic fact.
I wonder if Kurds will still help the U.S. in Syria on the west bank of the Euphrates?
bandoned by Trump and Cornered by Iran, Kurds Sign Oil Deal with Russia:
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/10/19/abandoned-trump-cornered-iran-kurds-sign-oil-deal-russia/
I’ve read both of these analyses, as well as Patrick Cockburn’s story in the Independent and also an Al-monitor report on the event.
I have to say that the very best report I’ve seen, and the finest piece of journalism on the subject currently, is Bernhard’s article at Moon of Alabama: Syria, Iraq – Why The Kurdish Independence Project Failed – October 17, 2017
I really like Mercouris but he admits in his article that he doesn’t understand Kurd politics, and so he misses what happened. He also misses the involvement of Iran, which all other commentators report as a strong ingredient of this military agreement between parties that all understood the futility of fighting.
Iran brokered this outcome, between armies that were quite capable of fighting, but whose leaders were tangled in clan and mafia style dynamics that it took legendary Iranian General Qassam Suleiman as respected intermediary to untangle.
The Middle East sorted this one out itself. Russia and Turkey nodded in agreement, and the US watched with disinterest. Only the US motivation here is not completely clear to me from any of the reports mentioned, and I would like to know more.
Two great articles complementing each other nicely.
What will be the fallout of the collapse of the criminal Barzani clan?
Plain and simple: No independent Kurdistans either in Iraq or Syria.
Iraqi Kurdistan will be cut back to its 2003 borders and in Syria all open issues between the Syrian government and the Kurds will be decided not in warfare but at the negotiation table. The Omar oilfields and such will obviously stay under Syrian government control.
What about ISIS? Good question. Where are they?
“… and the finest piece of journalism on the subject currently, is Bernhard’s article at Moon of Alabama”
Second that, Grieved. Bernhard’s output at Moon of Alabama has been outstanding, a real treat. b not only knows his topic as good as anyone, but he also has the rare gift of discernment – the art of knowing what is important and what is just white noise – very rarely found on alternative news sites and Zionstream media disseminates only noise, anyway – it’s their ‘business model’.
Thanks Grieved for this other link.
Having read it – I think that Pepe does compliment Alexander’s article by filling in the other important points which the other article you linked also discusses. Interestingly enough there was a meeting with the Kurds in Syria so it looks like similar plans are underfoot there too:
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/10/syrians-russians-and-kurds-discuss.html
And today the US for the first time admits that terrorists use chemical weapons in Syria.
http://tass.com/politics/971718
Throughout all of this we must never forget Oil and Gas…….and the US desperation to control this – perhaps this might expalin their lack of support suddenly for the Kurds in Kirkuk……
“On Thursday, Iraq said all agreements on developing oil and gas fields, if they had not been endorsed by Baghdad’s oil ministry, are illegal, Vedomosti writes. On October 18, Russia’s Rosneft announced that it had inked a deal with the government of Iraqi Kurdistan on buying an 80% share in five oil deposits in the region. The deal is worth $400 mln and the reserves at the fields total around 670 mln barrels of oil….”
More:
http://tass.com/pressreview/971705
quite amazing this comes out same time frame of the2nd one to make news:
New satrapy for one of europe’s dysfunctional megalomaniac autocrats to lord over…or not.
They should put Erdo on retainer as a ‘consultant’ on ideas & plan of action to deal with unruly subjects. he can have barcelona looking like Cizre inside a month.
Rajoy to take direct control of Catalonia using Article 155
‘All roads lead to new elections’ in region: Teneo’s Barroso
Spain’s government issued a statement on Thursday morning invoking Article 155 of the Constitution “to restore the legality” of the semi-autonomous region.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-19/spanish-government-to-proceed-with-suspending-catalan-autonomy-j8y73fog
While Escobar, Mercouris, and b have all written well on this; let’s not forget who the master strategist is in all this, Vladimir Putin and his generals.
His forthright style and honesty has won over all the M.E. with his master diplomatic skills and a most capable military.
relevant?
Russia’s Rosneft enter oil pipeline infrastructure project in Iraq’s Kurdistan
Business & Economy October 20, 4:16 UTC+3
According to the press service, the share of the Russian major oil company in the new project could stand at 60%
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VERONA, October 20. /TASS/. Russian oil major Rosneft and Iraqi Kurdistan announced the launch of a joint infrastructure project on the exploitation of a pipeline in the Kurdish autonomous region, the press service of the Russian company reported.
“The accession to the infrastructure project will boost the implementation of the company’s strategic goals and help to up the efficiency of oil supplies to consumers, including supplies of oil from Kurdistan to Rosneft oil refineries in Germany,” the press service cited Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin as saying.
According to the press service, the share of the Russian major oil company in the new project could stand at 60%.
by Taboola Promoted Links
More:
http://tass.com/economy/971689
Syrian Kurds do not want independence from Syria and do not seek the partitioning of the country, however what they are calling for is the federalization of the whole state, Shahoz Hasan, recently elected co-chair of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), has told Sputnik Turkiye.
“We are open for a dialogue with the central government. We do not want the partition of Syria, do not harbor plans of separating from the country and do not want to set up an independent Kurdistan. Such rumors are not true,” Shahoz Hasan told Sputnik.
The politician described the recent remarks of the Syrian government that it is open to negotiations with Kurds over their demands for autonomy within Syrian borders as “late in coming.”
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201710201058403594-syrian-kurds-independence/
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/10/syrians-russians-and-kurds-discuss.html
discussing usa bases,Y PG and political solutions re Kurds in Syria….a Chechenn advisor also in attendance re dealing with Chevhen terrorists in Syria……sounds interesting.
follow up
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/10/russian-and-turkish-delegations-visit.html
visit former Syrian airbase now under control by SDF….meeting Kurdish military personnel there.
Watch this space??????
I think the “key” to the situation is the part where Mercouris talked about the Iraqi army being remade.Months ago I made a comment about the way Middle Eastern (Arab) armies operated. They were more gloried police forces,meant to keep governments in power,than regular professional armies. The local elites or party hacks (depending on the country) used them for status,and a form of patronage for their supporters.And most importantly the foreign powers that trained and equipped them,had not intention to change that. The Soviets in their period,didn’t want their allies to have the military “know-how” to be able to fight Israel.Which would have probably got them involved in a war with the US. While even more so, the US didn’t want “any” Arab army to be able to challenge the Israelis at all.So Israel for different reasons was one of the root causes of those armies never being able to defend themselves (the other being local corruption).When selling those countries military equipment,it was either the “second line”,or if first line,the selling countries never fully trained the buyers to use that equipment in a modern professional manner.
All of that started to change in the last decade. The Iranians remade their military without depending on foreign powers for training (mostly). They began to build up a professionally trained military force.I’m not going to claim its Russian or US comparable. That I don’t know (nor does anyone else).But nonetheless,its “light years” ahead of what it was.And “probably” the best in the region (depending of course on Israel and Turkey.Other countries that we don’t know about “today”).As for the “Arab states”,only Syria and Iraq have really began to change.The rest of the Arab states still have the old “police force” militarizes (thanks to the US “training”).
In Iraq’s case I would give,by far,the lion’s share of credit,to Iran.It’s their helping train the Iraqis that changed the army from the one that “ran from ISIS” to the one who defeated ISIS.Of course the US “claims” they are the cause of that. But since they are the one who trained and equipped the old “running” army to start with. I think we can dismiss their claims. In Syria’s cause the change is even more profound. The crucible of the war against the Jihadis,convinced the Syrian government that a change, “had to be made”.And with so many of the old “police force” military killed, fled,or joining the anti-Assad forces.It made it much easier to effect that change. Russia for her own reasons (multifaceted I think),also decided they had to drop the old Soviet ideas about Syria’s military training.And if Assad was to win the war they had to “really” help train and equip a new Syrian military.And do it in a modern professional (Russian style) way. They along with Iran have helped remake Syria’s military.I would argue even more than Iraq’s was remade.
So,the bottom line is. With Iran and Russia’s aid the Iraqi and Syrian armies are becoming modern professional forces.And shedding the old US and Soviet trained “police force” militarizes of the past.That of course terrifies both the US and Israel. Which I think accounts for them both trying to use the Kurds against those countries.
Me thinks that the one model that works in modern armies of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Russia is a model built upon the Soviet/Prussian military training approach. NATO armies are made for terrorism and have no chance against a force determined to defend themselves. NATO trained Croatians were trained to ethnically cleanse whatsnow called Croatia of Serbs. They managed to accomplish the task only because an overwhelming betrayal within the Serbs themselves and because of the blanketed support from the whole of NATO. Wherever Croatians tried to do something on their own that was not part of the deal where NATO would withdraw their support they failed miserably. Meaning, the minions cannot operate on their own. They must be part of the Borg to function.
The same pattern was applied in Gruzia. That failed phenomenaly. Also the same happened with ISIS who in effect are NATO boots on the ground. They are failing too. Nazis in the Ukraine have tried three or four times so far and are still trying, applying the same terrorism school of war peddled by US of NATO. They cause unmeasurable suffering to the targeted populace but they are unable to win against well organised and motivated forces.
The Kurds have once again confirmed their historical dumbness in thinking that regional countries will allow them to alter the local geography of neighboring states so that Israel and the US can set up bases in the new entity.
Dont they ever learn?
Didnt the US similiarly hung them out to dry after using them against Saddam Hussein during Desert Storm?
The sight of them running around in Erbil and Kirkuk waving Israeli flags and having the arch criminal Netanyahu endorse their “independence” bid, did not serve their cause either.
Also, an independent Kurdistan would primarily become an Israeli outpost, and this is something Iran will never permit.
It should be pointed out that the US and Saudi Arabia are also secretly in favor of the Kurd’s independence scheme, but both countries are presently unable to make this a reality – which is a reflection of their relative weakness – so they’ve opted to stand aside, for now.
The US in particular has to pretend that it is not in favor of Kurdish independence.
Remember that the US has to always want and support whatever Tel-a-Viv wants.
So for the US its like the story of the Fox and the Grape:
unable to secure Kurdish independence, the US pretends as if its something Washington does not desire.
The Kurds should be realistic and accept the relative autonomy offered to them by the various central governments, and not seek “independence” to serve zionist’ interests.
Selah
Two very interesting reads- I enjoyed Pepe’s the most of the two and felt it touched on more relavent issues- Specifically the legendary inter-kurdish fighting- As for the piece linked in the comment section from MOA- It was more like Mercouris. Short on coverage of the inter kurdish fighting-bickering and long on grandiose proclamations- Which b is infamous for- including any numbers of announcements regarding Syria being safe and the US will leave it alone–
Getting back to Pepe:
” One, the eternal, internal split between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), led by wily tribal schemer Masoud Barzani, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party of the late Jalal Talabani”
Amen for that Pepe
“Zalmay Khalilzad, a.k.a. “Bush’s Afghan” and former US Ambassador to Iraq, furiously tweeting that Iran’s “IRGC-backed militia led by terrorist Mahdi Mohandis has begun an assault on Kirkuk.”
Interesting that tidbit- I had noticed the nonsense about IRGC being involved though it was flatly denied and seemed totally implausible- As a piece of spin it fits perfectly into the current perception management
“Now Baghdad is vowing to immediately rebuild the federal pipeline, totally bypassing Kurdistan.”
Wondering if this is the “iranian land bridge” I keep reading so much about? Which seems to include a plan for Iran/Iraq/Syria and a pipeline cutting through currently PKK/YPG annexed Syria/occupied by the US. Would this be the “Friendship Pipeline”?
The Mercouris piece: Since I’m of the opinion there has been no plan A, B or C I’m lost right there- The ME/NA remake is one that is already over a decade old- It takes time to remake a region- That is THE plan- Alterations or options within that overarching plan may be necessary, but, that does not indicate an shift in the overall goal.
I agree with his take on the Peshmerga’s, of which, there are more then one- each leader having his own army- Had it not been for the US firepower, in Iraq and in Syria present day- the KDP/PUK peshmerga and the PKK peshmerga largely in Syria wouldn’t have made the gains they did
Assuming here that everyone is aware of that fact that those called “Syrian Kurds” are largely Turkish/Northern Iraq PKK?- With some Iranian Kurds thrown in for good measure
And hoping no one missed the giant banner the PKK unfurled in Raqqa of their cult leader Ocalan?
Huge Banner of Ocalan in Raqqa
Mercouris “Even before the debacle of Kirkuk there were reports that some Kurdish leaders in Syria were becoming concerned that the Kurds in Syria were getting too close to the US, and were becoming over-dependent on the US.”
Getting too close to the US? As a recent development? – They’ve been close to the US for years- Hell, decades even! – If you want to get right down to it. The CIA was all about grooming the Kurds half a century ago to employ them as destabilizers/keeping their resident nation state in line. In Syria they’ve been calling in airstrikes to the US for years- killing civilians and this is written as if this is recent?! The US has been airdropping them weapons since they amazingly took Kobane (not it’s Syrian name) from ISIS- And how many years ago was that? They’ve been close to the US from day one! Exasperating to read this as a recent development.
Flopot is absolutely correct “There is quite enough evidence that the Kurdish armed groups collaborated with so-called ISIS (are we really still going to label the Western mercenaries and special forces that invaded Syria/Iraq with that risible abbreviation?).
Something neither Mercouris or Escobar talk about- Though the collusion was obvious.
In closing- Pt.1: Reports of Kurdistan’s Death are Greatly Exaggerated: Intra Kurdish Conflict
Excerpt
“In the wake of the September 25 referendum in Kurdistan, the Iraqi government announced on October 15 that it began a military deployment to reestablish authority in Kirkuk in coordination with the Peshmerga. It soon became clear that the Peshmerga mentioned belonged to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)—specifically, the Talabani family wing”
Pt.2: Reports of Kurdistan’s Death are Greatly Exaggerated: All Eggs Not Exclusive to Barzani
As I’d stated then “That all said reports of the death of Greater/Independent/Israel 2.0 Kurdistan are greatly exaggerated. To believe that what occurred in Kirkuk signals the end of Kurdistan/Greater/Independent, also known as Israel 2.0, is choosing to ignore the complexity of the Kurdish reality. While turning a blind eye the very obvious fact that the US and Israel would have very sensibly UTILIZED Kurds affiliated with the PKK.The KDP. The PUK. And other Kurdish militia/ war lord militants. For the simple reason that the US/Israeli string pullers & others of their kind: planners/strategists who game (a procedure or strategy for gaining an end) these situations would be expected to play multiple angles and employ numerous tactics using a variety of players. Understanding these basic concepts is the reason, entirely, for my writing these posts employing the headlines stating reports of Kurdistan’s death are greatly exaggerated!”
It’s too early to suggest with any certainty the push for a Greater Kurdistan aka Israel 2.0 by Usrael is over.
The giant banner of Ocalan unfurled in Raqqa speaks of a brazenness. An assurance that Usrael have got your back- That was a very blatant slap in the face to Iran, Syria and Turkey- Surely Usrael loved it. Netanyahu is lobbying all over the place. It’s more of a wait and see what develops before grand proclamations are made
I still keep wondering what is it that the Kurds, historically, have done so terrible to anyone which would bring on and merit the basically universal hostility against them of all their neighbors, including Turks, Arabs and Iranians,—as I sense the honest deepest attitudes among Turkish, Arabic and Iranian elites is for the Kurdish people to simply somehow cease to exist, not one of them should be left, nor any trace or memory of them.—I think some alliance with Isreal and/or USA is not the first choice of Kurdish leadership, but they have no local friends. The Arabs, Turks and Iranians are essentially predators who would like to get rid of Kurdish existence as the perfect solution to the Kurdish question.—And no doubt, the Kurds themselves must be suffering the corrupting influence of all this hostility against them, so they really cannot seem to get their ducks in a row.
And historical facts like, as I understand, the Muslim leader Saladdin who was victorious over the last Crusade was Kurdish,—that has made no real difference and has brought no respect or recognition or appreciation.
What are the fundamental roots of this universal opposition to Kurds and all things Kurdish and this universal desire to keep the Kurds down and this universal death wish against them among the elites of the Middle Eastern countries?
Bernard Henri Levy is that you?
The universal victim theme is so familiar. In perception management. The very idea of a universal victim means we must have a universal justice.
Yet the very fact that the kurdish people (however that is defined, even among themselves) still exist makes a lie of the claim made that their neighbours wish for them to cease in existing. However dramatic that reads
And reality, as in truth that actually exists, demonstrates quite clearly that the kurdish militias aided by the US and Israel have ethnically cleansed many Arabs- Sunni and Shiite alike- While also pillaging/displacing Christians.
So should everyone accept a universal victim theme that isn’t rooted in reality given the continued existence of the kurdish people. Or should we take a good hard look at reality, facts, and truth?
Do we live a lie? Or do we live in truth?
What is the relevance of “universal victim”? The Kurds are a very specific target of other specific predators in a specific situation.
Better comparison would be a cape buffalo surrounded by a pride of predatory lions attacking the buffalo and trying to finally kill it and devour it. Now, if the buffalo still lives and fights despite all the efforts by the lions, would this mean that it is a lie that the lions are attacking it and want to eat it?
And just because the Kurds still exist, would this mean it is a lie that elites [notice I say elites!] of the countries where the Kurds live do not really want to get rid of those Kurds once and for all—if only they could. Your reasoning is flawed. — And you do not answer the underlying question, how did this unfortunate situation for the Kurds historically come about?
THe first misunderstanding is that “the Kurds” are a single people when they are very heterogenous. There are two Kurdish languages, and Kurds have the same mix of religions as their neighbors – Sunni, Shia, Christian and also Yazidi.
The real issue is that Kurds allowed themselves to submit to Israel during their darkest hours in the early 1970’s, and this submission has never gone away.
The clearest example of Kurds serving Zionism is the car bombs which killed over 5000 Iraqi Ph.D. scientists and engineers, and thousands of Shias and Sunnis. Destroying the Ph.D.’s was intended to decapitate the technological and capable Iraq that Saddam Hussein had created, Car bombs killing targeted religious groups was intended to destroy Iraq by starting sectarian warfare. It’s common knowledge that the car bombs were outfitted by Israeli agents – err, independent businessmen” – in garages across Kurdistan. These cars were then smuggled into the rest of Iraq. I haven’t heard of anyone trying to peddle the fiction that the Kurdish government was unaware of these little workshops, nor that they could not have made surprise inspections of any Israeli-linked garages to stop this terrorism.
Attempting to destroy Iraq’s future and to start a religious-based civil war are serious crimes that, I’m sure, will not be forgiven until the Kurdish terrorists have been punished. That’s not going to happen any time soon, and in the meantime Iraq’s Kurds will be left out in the cold. A start would be to overthrow Barzani and his clan, who are CIA assets.
In short, the whole tragedy flows from the sad fact that the Kurds in Iraq have a leadership that works hand-in-glove with outside powers.
Eventually, it would be good if the situation returned to what it was before Saddam Hussein removed Kurds from Kirkut, leaving Kirkut with a slight Kurdish majority, but not as a Kurdish-controlled region.
Both analyses fail to assign appropriate wieght in addressing an important issue, namely, how much of the Iraq Army, the ISF, are dedicated members of the government forces, and how many are members of Shiite Militias (Al-Sadr and others) who do not take orders from the officer corps, rather rely on orders from their militia leaders. Is this the same Iraqi Army that in 2014 saw 30,000 run away from their posts in Mosul and Kirkut when attacked by much smaller forces from ISIS? Notice that when this occured, Al-Sadr immediately threatened to gather his militia together, proving first that the militias were not among those who ran away, and second that the Iraqi Army without militias is a weak force, despite US arms. I would like to see an accurate breakdown of the forces that moved north to take Kirkut from the Peshmerga. If the ISF currently is bolstered by large numbers of Iraqi Shiite Militias, it is a foregone conclusion that Iran has significant power over the effectiveness of the ISF, as the Shiite militias in Iraq are closely affiliated to Iran. The entire events are proof positive that the US is lumbering around like a bull in a china shop, completely unaware of subtle political, social and military relationships in a complicated region. News of General Soleimani being involved in both military decisions and negotiations strengthen the idea that Iran is becoming the major regional power, slowly solidifying the Shiite Crescent from Iran, Iraq, to Syria and Lebanon. The Israelis must be fuming, their bought-and-paid-for US politicians aghast, while normal Americans who stand for American interests first, like me, should be rejoicing.
From my perch in East Asia,
Frankie P