SubscribeThe process in Iraq is a complicated one indeed, and the more we are there the more confused the entire situation has become. Civil war now seems almost inevitable, and although the US forces have done yeoman's work in creating schools, hospitals, roads, et al in the Shi'ia controlled south, and have had the able support of the Kurds to do the same—and more—in the Kurdish controlled north, it is the Sunni controlled area of central Iraq that dominates the world news each evening. It is there that the soldiers from the coalition forces die each day. It is there that the schools are in shambles. It is there that the hospitals do not function. It is there that the terrorists flourish. As Nigeria was a makeshift country forged by the British colonialists of the 19th century from the hundreds of tribes that had (and still have) very little to do with one another, and just as Yugoslavia was a quasi-nature of even more disparate cultures held together by the sheer dint of force of President Tito, so too is Iraq a nation forged by the British from three very different cultures now rending at the seams.cf. "the real ‘clash of civilisations’ in the Middle East."
Few understand that the Kurds in the north have in their region one of the largest unexplored oil reserves in the world, and it may indeed actually be the largest. Suffice it to say that it is enormous. The problem is that the Iraqi constitutional convention is putting forth a federally oriented constitution that grants a good deal of regional autonomy to the various ethnic groups there, creating an inherent instability. Eventually, the Shi'ia will form just such a region in the oil rich south; so too the Kurds in the oil rich (and soon to be oil-richer) north. That leaves the oil-poor Sunnis in the middle. They know this all too well, and it is perhaps the central reason why they fight as they do, having lost control of their once fabulous fortunes in the north and the south.
The constitution, as it presently stands, mandates that all of the revenues and profits from all current known oil reserves in the three regions will be shared by the Iraqi federal government. BUT (and this is a huge "but" ... a very, very huge "but") all future oil discoveries will be controlled by the various regions. This was the only way that the constitution might even be modestly palatable to the three groups involved. Even so, we wonder how it shall be that the Kurds will continue to allow their present oil wealth to be split three ways with the Shi'ia and the Sunni. We wonder how the Shi'ia will allow their oil wealth to be split in the same fashion between the Kurds and the Sunni. Just as the Ogoni tribespeople in the southeastern Nigeria have fought for years to have control of the oil wealth that lies beneath the soil and offshore there, instead of having the revenues flow to Abuja and the federal government, so too will the Kurds and the Shi'ia fight against the Sunni. Were we in that position that is what we would do. It is what any faction anywhere in the world would do. To think otherwise is nonsense and naïve.
There will be a separate Kurdistan at some point in the future. The Turks, having fought the notion of a land-locked Kurdistan on its southeast corner, will now support such a nation, for the Kurds will have every reason to support the movement of their oil through Kurdish-Turkish pipelines to the Turkish port at Ceyhan. If Turkey supports an independent Kurdistan, which for all intents already exists given the level of autonomy and stability in that region, then eventually it will be a reality. If Iran supports the creation of an independent Shi'ia nation in the present Iraqi south as a "buffer state" to separate it from the Sunni controlled central region of present day Iraq, then it too shall eventually be independent and oil wealthy. The Sunnis, as they say, are caught in the middle. They know that and they are creating chaos, strangely, in order to hold the old Iraq together. They are fighting a rear-guard action and they are facing a very bleak future.
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Yeah... for the Kurds and the Shi'ites. The Sunni overwhelmingly oppose it, and rightly so.
Did you know that future oil income from new or reconstructed wells isn't shared? The constitution sets the stage for a massive looting of the oil wealth of Iraq by the Kurds and the Shi'ites.
That ain't gonna wash.
posted by insomnia_lj at 5:43 PM on September 14, 2005