by GIORGIO CAFIERO
Once strong and unified states on the vanguard of Arab nationalism, Iraq and Syria are on the verge of partition, fragmentation, and dismemberment. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and at least 60,000 Syrians who have lost their lives, other victims of the two nations’ sectarian strife may include the Iraqi and Syrian national identities themselves.
However, the victors of these two conflicts are the Kurds. Today, Iraqi and Syrian Kurds enjoy unprecedented autonomy from Baghdad and Damascus, and the prospects of an independent Kurdish state are real. Despite the Kurds’ gains, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), led by President Massoud Barzani, finds its semi-autonomous state in northern Iraq at several geopolitical fault lines. Barzani must tread carefully in this volatile region to safeguard the Iraqi Kurds’ interests while pursuing independence from central Iraq.
The possibility of war with Bagdad over territory and energy resources constitutes Barzani’s gravest security challenge, as demonstrated by the recent violence in Iraq’s contested city of Kirkuk. Nonetheless, as Iraq’s Arab-Kurdish problems do not exist in a vacuum, one cannot analyze Baghdad and Erbil’s standoff without factoring into account the role of regional heavyweights.
Turkey
To Turkey’s alarm, last summer the Syrian Kurds gained de facto autonomy in certain Kurdish-majority areas of northern Syria. Ankara feared that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) would secure a safe haven just south of the Turkish border, encouraging Turkey’s own Kurdish population to demand greater autonomy. Given that a PKK-affiliate group—the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the most heavily armed Syrian Kurdish faction—appeared to control most of Syria’s Kurdish towns, Turkey’s concerns were well grounded.
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