Vol. 73/No. 29      August 3, 2009

The ongoing tensions between the U.S.-backed regime in Baghdad and the KRG highlight one of the central fault lines of instability facing that country’s capitalist rulers. Numbering 5 million, the Iraqi Kurds are part of the 25-million-strong oppressed Kurdish nationality straddling Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria. The Kurdish capitalist parties have been strongly allied with Washington’s war in Iraq and took advantage of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein to strengthen their autonomy in the northern provinces, which are also known as Iraqi Kurdistan.

Tensions have been sharp between Baghdad and the KRG over control of oil revenues. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is the leader of the dominant Shiite faction that is in an uneasy coalition with Sunni capitalist forces. While working together they also sharply compete for control of Iraq’s government and its oil wealth. The central government has been particularly angered by the Kurdish regional government’s negotiation of oil contracts directly with foreign oil companies.

Inclusion of Kirkuk Province in Iraqi Kurdistan is hotly contested. Under Hussein’s Baath Party regime thousands of Kurds were forcibly removed from Kirkuk and replaced with Arabs, many of them forced to move there to ensure Baathist control of the province and its oil. In the last few years hundreds of thousands of Kurds have resettled in the province, often driving out Arabs.

U.S. vice president Joseph Biden began a three-day visit to Iraq on July 2. He strongly criticized the planned referendum on a new Iraqi Kurdistan constitution, calling it “not helpful.” In an interview published in the July 9 Wall Street Journal al-Maliki said the Kurds are “crossing the green line” and “circumventing the central government authority,” which are “provocations” that will damage relations. He added that these were differences that could be resolved.

“This lays the foundation for a separate state—it is not a constitution for a region,” said Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni Arab member of Iraq’s national parliament, according to the New York Times.

The United Nations on April 22 handed the Iraqi government its report on the disputed Kurdish regions, recommending that Kirkuk not be incorporated into Kurdistan. A senior Kurdish official involved in UN-sponsored talks between Baghdad and the KRG described them as a “punch in the face… . We are fed up with them,” reported the Times.

Adnan al-Mufti, spokesman for the Kurdish parliament, called the passage of the draft constitution an “important and historic day. For the first time the people of Kurdistan took steps to be the owner of their own constitution and exercise their natural right.”

The KRG had planned the referendum to take place July 25, the same day as parliamentary and presidential elections. The Kurdish parliament announced that it would reschedule the referendum after the region’s election commission said it could not organize the two votes on the same day and that the earliest the referendum could be held would be August 11.  
 
 
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