Iran sets deadline for nuclear programme deal

The Guardian reports: Iran is seeking a deal with major world powers within weeks that would end years of dispute over the country’s nuclear programme and economic sanctions imposed on it by western powers, President Hassan Rouhani has said.

He said he wanted to reach an agreement by 20 July, adding that the the international sanctions regime had crumbled and would not be rebuilt – even if no final nuclear deal could be reached.

Rouhani also said he would be willing to work with the White House to meet the danger posed by Islamist extremists who have taken towns in northern Iraq, in a sign of shifting attitudes towards the US in Tehran.

“The disputes can be resolved with goodwill and flexibility … I believe that the 20 July deadline can be met despite remaining disputes. If not, we can continue the talks for a month or more,” he said, addressing the nation in a live broadcast on state television.

“During the nuclear negotiations we have displayed our strong commitment to diplomacy (but even) if a deal can’t be reached by July 20, conditions will never be like the past. The sanctions regime has been broken.” [Continue reading…]

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Iran’s dissidents, released but not freed

Robin Wright writes: Rouhani’s victory, an upset, spawned great expectations of change. A pragmatic centrist, he campaigned on the promise of “hope and prudence.” After the election, in a series of speeches and tweets, he pledged new freedoms and challenged past practices, including censorship. His quasi-official account tweeted, “Web filtering unable to produce results. Which important piece of news has #filtering been able to black out in recent years.” Rouhani was particularly tough on the country’s state-controlled television, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (I.R.I.B.):

Over the past year, though, Rouhani has conspicuously failed to uphold his promise. “We have freedom of expression in Iran,” Shamsolvaezin told me. “We just don’t have freedom after expression.” In accepting his press award, in April, Shamsolvaezin called for the release of forty-eight other jailed journalists.

Rouhani’s domestic agenda has generally suffered in his first year, while he concentrated on foreign policy—and, almost single-mindedly, on negotiating a nuclear deal with the world’s six major powers. (Talks will resume next week in Vienna.)

In the meantime, Iran maintains a bifurcated legal system that can charge people on vague grounds of un-Islamic behavior or unrevolutionary activities. Rouhani has been unwilling to take on either Iran’s deep state — a mix of security and intelligence agencies with their own political agendas — or the judiciary, over which he has no constitutional control. In addition to civil and criminal courts, Iran has Islamic revolutionary courts. Amnesty International warned last week that “despite President Rouhani’s popular mandate, Iran’s clerically-dominated politico-religious establishment, headed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and hardliners within its security and judicial sectors, retain enormous power and influence and, to a large extent, continue to have the determining voice on the nature and pace of change in Iran.” As Shamsolvaezin put it, “The ruling system is the deep state.” [Continue reading…]

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Chelsea Manning on the U.S. military and media freedom

Chelsea Manning writes: When I chose to disclose classified information in 2010, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others. I’m now serving a sentence of 35 years in prison for these unauthorized disclosures. I understand that my actions violated the law.

However, the concerns that motivated me have not been resolved. As Iraq erupts in civil war and America again contemplates intervention, that unfinished business should give new urgency to the question of how the United States military controlled the media coverage of its long involvement there and in Afghanistan. I believe that the current limits on press freedom and excessive government secrecy make it impossible for Americans to grasp fully what is happening in the wars we finance.

If you were following the news during the March 2010 elections in Iraq, you might remember that the American press was flooded with stories declaring the elections a success, complete with upbeat anecdotes and photographs of Iraqi women proudly displaying their ink-stained fingers. The subtext was that United States military operations had succeeded in creating a stable and democratic Iraq.

Those of us stationed there were acutely aware of a more complicated reality. [Continue reading…]

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Israelis can try, but they can’t ignore the occupation

Gideon Levy writes: The abduction of three yeshiva students in the West Bank last Thursday was ordered in advance – by Israel. At the time of writing, Saturday, their fate was unknown and concern for their welfare outweighed all other issues connected to their disappearance. But no matter what happens in the end, whether they return home safely or not, God forbid, whether the responsible party turns out to be global jihad or the local kind, the context of the action cannot be ignored.

Perhaps the operation took Israel’s oh-so-sophisticated espionage agencies by surprise, but it could not have been a real surprise to anyone.

Those who stubbornly refuse to release Palestinian prisoners, some of whom have been incarcerated for decades, from before the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, and some of whom Israel has promised to set free; those who imprison detainees without trial for years; those who ignore the hunger strike by 125 “administrative” detainees, some of whom are dying in hospitals; those who intend to feed them using force, and those who planned to pass sweeping laws to prohibit their release – these people cannot pretend to be surprised or shocked by the abductions. They arranged for them in advance.

Israel, which is so worried about the welfare of every one of its citizens, has for years arrogantly ignored the Palestinian concern for the welfare of their prisoners.

Israel holds the copyright to concern for its people, as it does for the worship of the heroes of the national struggle. Meir Har-Zion [a founding member of Unit 101, who in 1953 led a retaliatory raid against a Bedouin tribe after his sister and others were killed while making an illegal trip to Petra] was a national hero; Ahmad Sa’adat [the secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine] is a base murderer.

Gilad Shalit was all ours, but the fate of Walid Daka, who has been imprisoned in Israel for more than 30 years, for the crime of membership in a militant cell that killed an Israeli soldier – without a single furlough or conjugal visit – is of no interest to anyone here.

No one here cares about the thousands of Palestinian prisoners. Last week, Israelis were much more interested in Meir Sheetrit’s housekeeper than in 125 hunger strikers who have been slowly starving to death for 53 days now.

Among the thousands of Palestinian prisoners are some base murderers, but also many political prisoners – and all of them are seen as heroes of the Palestinian national struggle. It’s the same in every national struggle. Behind them stands an entire society, which is no less worried about their fate than Israelis are for that of their loved ones. [Continue reading…]

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The ISIS peril clarifies what Arabs need

Rami G. Khouri writes: The startling developments in northern Iraq, where the militant group the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) has taken control of Mosul and other cities, highlights several troubling trends that have been evident across much of the Arab World for years.

ISIS moved into Mosul and other cities swiftly and without any real combat because these underlying trends all played their role in this great unfolding drama that speaks to the troubling realities of the Arab world.

This is about much more than any individual issue such as spillover from Syria, lack of Western military assistance to anti-Bashar Assad rebels, growing sectarian tensions in Iraq, or the spread of extremist Islamist militancy. Iraq today has reached a momentous moment of reckoning for the weaknesses of modern Arab statehood and governance. External factors certainly played their roles, such as the Anglo-American war on Iraq in 2003, decades of Israeli meddling in Arab conditions, and Iran’s growing influence in the region.

These external factors, however, could only impact on conditions in Iraq because of the underlying structural problems whose consequences are now playing out before us every day. These underlying Arab-made structural problems include corrupt and incompetent governance, weak citizenship, brittle statehood, and a severe lack of cohesion among different ethnic and sectarian groups within countries.

The news that many locals have not resisted, and even often welcomed, the arrival of ISIS should clarify the intense problems that existed between the government and mostly Sunni local communities in northwest Iraq. Air attacks by the Iraqi government or military moves by foreign powers such as Iran or the United States will momentarily delay the expansion of ISIS-controlled areas. But military power in the long run remains helpless in the face of determined moves by disgruntled citizens to regain what they see as dignity, freedom and rights.

The best proof of this is the steady expansion in the numbers and capabilities of extremist Salafist-takfiri militant groups such as Al-Qaeda, ISIS, the Nusra Front and dozens of other groups that have been repeatedly targeted by military strikes by local governments and the American armed forces. So, military attacks against ISIS and its local allies in Iraq would momentarily pause the current trajectory of the group’s expansion, but will not stop it in the long run.

The fact that some Iraqis would consider life under the draconian rules of ISIS preferable to the conditions they had endured under previous elected Iraqi governments shows how severe are the grievances of ordinary citizens under the rule of Arab tyrants. [Continue reading…]

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Iran open to cooperating with U.S. in defense of Iraq

Reuters reports: Shi’te Muslim Iran is so alarmed by Sunni insurgent gains in Iraq that it may be willing to cooperate with Washington in helping Baghdad fight back, a senior Iranian official told Reuters.

The idea is being discussed internally among the Islamic Republic’s leadership, the senior Iranian official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official had no word on whether the idea had been raised with any other party.

Officials say Iran will send its neighbor advisers and weaponry, although probably not troops, to help its ally Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki check what Tehran sees as a profound threat to regional stability, officials and analysts say.

Islamist militants have captured swathes of territory including the country’s second biggest city Mosul.

Tehran is open to the possibility of working with the United States to support Baghdad, the senior official said.

“We can work with Americans to end the insurgency in the Middle East,” the official said, referring to events in Iraq. [Continue reading…]

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Iranian proxies step up their role in Iraq

Phillip Smyth writes: On June 10, Iraqi president Nouri al-Maliki publicly called for the establishment of popular militias in response to the latest jihadist offensives in Mosul and other areas. Yet well before this announcement, Iran’s proxies — including Kataib Hezbollah (KH) and Asaib Ahl al-Haqq (AAH) — had already redeployed some of their forces fighting in Syria back to Iraq. Extensive evidence shows that these proxy groups have been recruiting fighters for Iraq, and that such recruits are working closely with the Iraqi army and Internal Security Forces (ISF).

Iran’s proxies have been involved in extensive recruitment efforts for months, with KH stepping up its efforts in late April to rally fighters behind the “defense of Iraq.” One result was the establishment of a new group, Saraya al-Dafa al-Shabi (the Popular Defense Companies). In May, an official KH video announced that this force was fighting alongside the ISF. In addition, AAH and another Shiite militia group, the Badr Organization, have established numerous city-based “popular committees” since April.

As early as January, fighters from AAH and the Iranian-guided Rapid Reaction Force (RRF) announced that they had sent forces back to Iraq from Syria. Subsequently, AAH claimed that its fighters were involved in this year’s fighting in Fallujah. These redeployments and recruitment efforts also entailed major restructuring of organizations in Syria. [Continue reading…]

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Conflict shows new, closer Turk-Iraqi Kurdish ties

The Wall Street Journal reports: The military posture of northern Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government to defend itself against advancing Islamist rebels spotlights a reversal in one of the region’s most toxic relationships: Between Turkey and the Kurds.

In previous years, Kurdish assertiveness — even in neighboring Iraq — was often countered by Turkey, which for more than a quarter century was locked in a deadly conflict with Kurdish separatists in its own country before launching peace talks in 2012.

But since the U.S. invasion of Iraq more than a decade ago, Turkey has built close ties to the Kurdish government in its regional capital of Erbil, Iraq, expanding bilateral trade and coordinating vital policy issues, including the civil war in Syria.

Underscoring that trend, Turkey has kept mum on Erbil’s mobilization to defend its borders this past week by deploying its Peshmerga troops into the oil-rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk. In past decades, Turkey has fiercely objected any Kurdish advances in Kirkuk, maintaining that the city has a multi-ethnic character and a large population of Iraqi Turkmens.

Turkey is itself preoccupied with freeing about 80 hostages captured by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) when the Sunni Muslim rebel group captured Mosul this past week.

Kurdish officials now agree that the fate of Turkey and the Kurds are entwined, and policy increasingly reflects shared economic and security interests. [Continue reading…]

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Iran deploys Revolutionary Guards units to Iraq

The Wall Street Journal reports: The threat of Sunni extremists eclipsing the power of its Shiite-dominated Arab ally presents Iran with the biggest security and strategic challenge it has faced since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

With the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, an offshoot of al Qaeda, rapidly gaining territory, Iran deployed Revolutionary Guards units to Iraq, according to Iranian security officials.

Iran has invested considerable financial, political and military resources over the past decade to ensure Iraq emerged from U.S. war as a strategic partner for the Islamic Republic and a strong Shiite-led state. The so-called Shiite crescent—stretching from Iran to Iraq, Lebanon and Syria—was forged largely as a result of this effort.

Two Guards’ units, dispatched from Iran’s western border provinces on Wednesday, were tasked with protecting Baghdad and the holy Shiite cities of Karbala and Najaf, these security sources said. [Continue reading…]

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Iraqis who fled Mosul say they prefer militants to government

From Erbil, the New York Times reports: After Islamic extremists swarmed his city this week, Saad Hussein fled here with his wife and six children. But after one night, he was on his way back home to Mosul, hearing that things were quiet there.

“What can we do?” said Mr. Hussein, at a checkpoint on the road from Erbil to Mosul. “You have to depend on your God.”

Another man stood nearby, his two small sons tugging at his belt. He had left Mosul and was waiting to enter Erbil, about 50 miles to the east. “We don’t know what will happen in the future,” said the man, Ahmed Ali, 31. “The government is not there. It’s empty.”

As many as 500,000 Iraqis fled Mosul this week after the city was besieged by the extremist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, many of them Sunnis who seemed less fearful of the beheadings and summary justice that the group is known for than of their own government and the barrage it might unleash in an effort to take the city back. [Continue reading…]

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Ayatollah Sistani calls on volunteers to defend Iraq, its citizens and shrines

The Washington Post reports: Shiite clerics called on Iraqi civilians Friday to take up arms against advancing Sunni insurgents inspired by al-Qaeda, drawing the battle lines for a major sectarian confrontation in the fracturing state.

President Obama, meanwhile, said he would not exercise any military option until Iraq’s leaders show they are committed to bridging their differences with the opposition.

With heavily armed fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) seizing more territory overnight in a rampage that threatens to tear the country apart, Iraqi officials said tens of thousands of civilians had volunteered to fight alongside the crumbling security forces.

Shiite religious leaders, including Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, used Friday prayers to call on the faithful to take up arms against the radical Sunni Muslim insurgents. In the Shiite holy city of Karbala, a representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani urged anyone who can carry a weapon to “defend the country, the citizens and the holy sites.” [Continue reading…]

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Iraq, ISIL and the region’s choices

Shashank Joshi and Aaron Stein write: Can ISIL defend its gains? Most likely, yes. In Mosul it seized large quantities of US-supplied military equipment, reportedly stolen over $400m in Iraqi currency from the city’s banks, and freed thousands of prisoners, many of whom are likely to join the insurgency. Its ability to hold out for over four months in the western city of Fallujah, forcing the government to resort to indiscriminate shelling in the absence of sufficient airpower, is an indication of ISIL’s defence capabilities. However, it remains unclear how much assistance ISIL has also received from outside.

ISIL’s military offensives were almost certainly facilitated by smaller militant groups such as the Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order, an organisation of former Baathist Iraqi army officers. As ISIL gains strength, it may command the loyalty of more such combat-proficient groups, thereby increasing its reach; it may also find conflicts of interests with these allies of convenience, particularly if it persists in its brutal behaviour.

What is ISIL’s next step? Although it is already seeking to expand its territorial reach beyond Tikrit, its ability to capture the capital itself should not be exaggerated. Whereas the government had neglected the defence of Mosul, Baghdad is better prepared. The capital also has a much larger portion of Shia Muslims than Mosul, Kirkuk, or Tikrit, so that ISIL will lack the same degree of tacit or informal support in many areas.

The greater short-term danger is that ISIL will enter Samarra, a city housing holy Shia sites whose bombing in 2006 by ISIL’s earlier incarnation, al-Qaeda in Iraq, catalysed a nationwide civil war. For ISIL, catalysing sectarian violence by provoking Shia reprisals would not only serve its ideological objectives but also push vulnerable Iraq Sunnis into its arms. [Continue reading…]

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The return of foreign fighters to Iraq

Aaron Y. Zelin writes: Similar to Al Qaeda in Iraq’s original practice of posting official martyrdom notices, ISIS began doing so itself earlier this year, highlighting its comfort in sharing such information. Since early March, the group has released 201 martyrdom notices on its official province-level Twitter accounts for foreign fighters killed in Iraq (most of the notices were also posted on online jihadist forums). Although some of these notices were for individuals who died as far back as September 2012, the vast majority were for deaths that occurred after April 2013.

Since this information is self-reported by ISIS, and because the group continues to release older notices, the actual number of foreigners who have died in Iraq is likely higher. Further, some notices do not name a specific country of origin, instead using phrases such as “al-Shami” (which could denote anyone in the Levant) and “al-Muhajir” (meaning simply “emigrant”). In any case, this year’s jihadist death toll is set to exceed last year’s — if the current pace continues, some 233 foreign fighters will have been killed in Iraq by the end of 2014, or two-and-a-half times more than 2013. And the pace will likely accelerate given the increased fighting.

Similar to last decade, Saudis are well represented in ISIS martyrdom notices (with 38 dead), as are Libyans (10 dead). And many of the 18 “unknown” cases are likely Syrians. The biggest change is the enormous growth in the Tunisian (57 dead) and Moroccan (27) contingents. And while the majority of fighters hail from the Arab world, the notices also name individuals from the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Horn of Africa, North America, and Western Europe. Among the eight Westerners represented, three were from Denmark, three from France, and one each from Canada and Norway. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS was wreaking havoc in Mosul long before it took over

Letta Tayler at Human Rights Watch writes: One morning in January, two armed men entered the shop of a Christian metalworker, Laith Hadi Bahnam, in the Karama industrial zone of Mosul, and demanded that he repair a silencer for one of their guns. When Bahnam refused, according to two of his friends, one of the gunmen threatened, “I’m going to kill you.”

Ten days later, on January 29, the two armed men returned. As Bahnam, 56, pleaded for his life, the gunmen shot him three times in the face and chest, killing him instantly. Local authorities attributed the killing to the group calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS. But although there were many witnesses, the authorities did not investigate further and made no arrests.

This week, ISIS brazenly seized Mosul from Iraq’s U.S.-supported military, catching both Baghdad and Washington off guard. But the capture of Iraq’s second-largest city should not have come as a surprise. Long before the city’s dramatic fall, ISIS, which formed in April 2013, and its precursor, al Qaeda in Iraq, were operating openly for years in Mosul, killing civilians like Bahnam with impunity, manipulating the justice system, and even collecting so-called “jihad taxes” from local businesses. And yet Iraq’s extensive military and security apparatus did almost nothing.

I visited Iraq in May, in part to investigate recent ISIS abuses in Mosul. I met with and interviewed Mosul residents in the capital, Baghdad, and in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan (it was too dangerous for them to speak with me in their hometown). From their stories, I got a horrifying glimpse of what may be in store if the group achieves its goal of establishing a “caliphate” in the region. [Continue reading…]

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Methodists to sell shares as a protest over Israeli occupation

The New York Times reports: The pension board of the nation’s largest mainline Protestant denomination, the United Methodist Church, has decided to divest its shares in a British company that supplies security equipment to Israel for use in prisons and in the occupied West Bank.

The move comes as Israel has been trying to fend off resolutions by academic institutions, businesses and church groups to divest from companies that do business with Israel.

The Methodist Church’s investment in the company, G4S, involves only about $110,000 worth of stock holdings, said David Wildman, executive secretary for human rights and racial justice for the church’s General Board of Global Ministries. But the action is intended to have a larger symbolic impact, adding to the pressure on Israel to stop building settlements and end the occupation. [Continue reading…]

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Iran cares more about Baghdad than Damascus

Hayder al-Khoei, associate fellow at the London think tank Chatham House, spoke to IranWire from Baghdad.

What has been Iran’s level of threat-perception following these attacks?

It’s extremely high. They are worried that this is going to give ISIS a further stepping stone, and act as a launching pad for the rest of Iraq. [Iran] has mobilized in very high numbers Shia militia forces loyal to Iran, especially the AAH militia, the Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq. Just a few hours ago some friends confirmed that the [Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps] General Qassem Suleimani is in Baghdad. He arrived yesterday. I think his presence in the capital is a sign of just how seriously the Iranians are taking the ISIS threat.

He was reported to have gone to the checkpoints on the outskirts of Baghdad to make sure that the Iraqi armed forces and the Shia militias that are acting as the paramilitary support units are ready, and capable of defending the city. It was also reported that he went to Balad, north of Baghdad, and Samarra, where ISIS was thwarted by the armed forces. Certainly the Iranians are taking this extremely seriously. The mobilization of the Shia militias, and Qassem Suleimani’s presence, is a very good indication of how seriously they’re taking this.

They were crucial in preventing Damascus from falling, and other Syrian cities. Baghdad is a lot closer to home for the Iranians, and they’ve told their Shia partners, ‘Iraq is our backyard.’ Certainly they’ll take much more care of Baghdad, even more so than Damascus.

What do we know about ISIS’s intentions towards the Shia shrines in Iraq?

ISIS have, and want to, attack Shia symbolic shrines, because that way they can provoke not just the Shia militias into retaliating, but ordinary Shia civilians. If that happens, it could trigger another sectarian and civil war. Even in Mosul, on their official Twitter pages, they were telling the people of Mosul they are safe under their hand, except for the Shia, so they are extremely opposed ideologically to the Shia, and see them as apostates, not Muslims.

The ISIS official spokesman, [Abu Muhammad] al-Adnani said to Maliki and the Iraqi government, we’re not going to settle our score with you in Samarra and Baghdad, we’re going to settle our score with you in [the Shia holy cities of] Najaf and Karbala.

Now of course it’s going to be much harder [for ISIS] to penetrate the cities of Najaf and Karbala, because the people there, unlike in Mosul, [support] the armed forces, and on top of that you have Shia militias who will prevent anything similar to what we saw in Falluja, Mosul and Tikrit.

In Baghdad and the south it’s a different story. There’s a lot of media hype about ISIS capabilities and ISIS gains, and I don’t want to downplay the ISIS threat, but the people in the capital and the South are going to be much more willing to defend their cities, and the armed forces along with the militias are going to be much more prepared to die. In Mosul the armed forces had no will to fight at all.

The Shia militias — Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Hezbollah, the Badr Brigades — these are all ideologically-driven militias, so they will fight to the death, unlike the army units in the north of the country. [Continue reading…]

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Iraq’s government appears powerless to defend against ISIS advance

McClatchy reports: The long-predicted dissolution of a centrally controlled Iraq ruled from Baghdad appeared closer to reality on Thursday as radical Islamist fighters advanced through the country with little interference from what remained of Iraq’s disintegrating security forces.

Only militias tied to Iraq’s feuding religious and ethnic groups mounted serious resistance to the southward push by fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, who now appear to be supported by an ad hoc coalition of Sunni Muslim tribes and militant groups opposed to the Shiite-dominated central government. With the lone exception of a helicopter assault on an insurgent position north of the central city of Tikrit, Iraqi army and security forces continued to abandon their posts whenever confronted by ISIS.

The collapse of central authority also was evident in Baghdad, where the Iraqi Parliament failed to muster a quorum to consider a request from Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki for a declaration of a state of emergency. Maliki responded in a statement read on state television by accusing Sunni political parties of conspiring to destroy the state. In recent days, Maliki, who also serves as the defense minister, has blamed the same parties for the army’s massive desertion in the face of the ISIS offensive.

“Iraq’s future at this point is being shaped by conflict rather than by a viable political system. No one really knows where it’s going,” Salman Sheikh, the director of the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar, said in a telephone interview from Beirut. “The long-term impact could be quite cataclysmic, not just for Iraq, but for the entire region.”

The prediction that Iraq would one day descend into an ungovernable space of feuding ethnic and religious groups was first made when U.S. forces toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. Now that it seemed to be happening, many found it difficult to grasp the unfolding reality.

In Washington, President Barack Obama told reporters that the United States was considering all options to aid the Maliki government, Defense Department officials said there was no speedup in the previously set schedule for the delivery of military equipment, and Congress seemed slow to grasp that the ship had likely sailed on hopes that Maliki could somehow save the situation. [Continue reading…]

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How the Kurds may benefit from the ISIS rampage

Foreign Policy reports: Amid the rubble left in Iraq by the rampage of Islamist insurgents, one group seems poised to benefit: the Kurds. Baghdad’s flailing response to the offensive launched by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham opens the door to greater geographical reach for the Kurdish region, greater leverage over the central government, and a stronger possibility of becoming a big energy exporter in its own right.

The Islamist insurgents, known variously as ISIS and ISIL, continued their drive south toward the Iraqi capital on Thursday after having captured key northern cities, including Mosul. No less vigorous has been the Kurdish response: In sharp contrast to the Iraqi military forces, which evaporated despite outnumbering ISIS fighters, Kurdish military forces on Thursday took Kirkuk, an important city straddling the Arab and Kurdish parts of Iraq and the centerpiece of the northern oil industry. The Kurdish occupation, in a matter of hours, of a city that has been a bone of contention between Arabs and Kurds for centuries — and especially during Saddam Hussein’s rule of Iraq — underscores how dramatically the ISIS offensive is redrawing the map of Iraq.

“This may be the end of Iraq as it was. The chances that Iraq can return to the centralized state that [Prime Minister Nouri] al-Maliki was trying to restore are minimal at this point,” said Marina Ottaway, a Middle East specialist at the Wilson Center.

The contrast between robust security in Kurdish-ruled parts of the country and the security vacuum left by fleeing Iraqi troops could ultimately roll back decades of Iraqi history and put Kurdish leaders in Erbil in the catbird seat, especially when it comes to a contentious tug of war over energy resources.

“The strategic failure of Iraqi forces has really shifted the entire balance of power between the Kurdish Regional Government and Baghdad,” said Ayham Kamel, Middle East director at the Eurasia Group, a risk consultancy. “It really allows the KRG to negotiate with Baghdad on entirely different terms” when it comes to a fight over the Kurds’ right to export oil directly.

For years, Kurds in northern Iraq sought to benefit more from the region’s abundant oil and gas resources, but energy exports were centralized in Baghdad, with export revenues shared among Iraq’s regions. Kurdish leaders argued that the deal shortchanged them because they never got the 17 percent of revenues they were promised.

As a result, the Kurds decided — in the face of a barrage of threats and intimidation from Baghdad — to build their own energy-export infrastructure, enabling them to transport oil directly to nearby Turkey. That pipeline opened this year and energy firms operating in the region say that it will be fully operational later this year. Getting the export pipeline up to cruising speed is important for the Kurdish government. It needs to export about 450,000 barrels of oil a day to earn what it received from the central government. By the end of next year, the KRG hopes to be exporting as many as 1 million barrels a day. [Continue reading…]

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