Kurds in the Coal Mine
<p>How will we know if the attempt to reconstruct Iraq is failing?</p>
<p>This is a serious question.  With as much hysterical anti-Iraq-war,<br />
anti-Bush-Administration fabrication going in the media as there has<br />
been, it&#8217;s tempting for a rational person to dismiss every negative<br />
report as just another load of Michael Mooronism and dismiss it.  That<br />
would be a mistake.  Things could still go very bad there. How would<br />
we tell?</p>
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<p>I was pondering this question the other day, and I realized that there<br />
is an excellent test for the state of Iraq.  When the Kurds start muttering<br />
about secession, <em>then</em> is the time to worry that matters are<br />
spinning out of control.  Conversely, as long as they&#8217;re happy to<br />
stay in Iraq, outsiders can feel reasonably confident that the place<br />
is not going to hell in a handbasket.</p>
<p>Consider.  The Kurds have mostly been running their own affairs<br />
since the end of Gulf War I, shielded by the northern no-fly zone.<br />
They&#8217;re a large, cohesive minority with cross-border ties to Kurds<br />
elsewhere and a recurring dream of an independent Kurdistan.  They<br />
have enough oil to jump-start an independent national economy.  Their<br />
militia, the peshmergas, has a reputation for effectiveness and is<br />
probably the best-trained factional army in Iraq. And of all the<br />
factions, they&#8217;re on the best terms with the U.S.</p>
<p>It was, frankly, a bit surprising to me that the Kurds didn&#8217;t bid<br />
for independence when the Hussein regime went down. Of all Iraq&#8217;s<br />
tribal factions (except the defeated Sunnis) they have the least to<br />
gain from staying in the national government.  Consequently, the<br />
Shi&#8217;ites have been forced to cede them an allocation of ministries and<br />
top posts far out of proportion to the Kurdish percentage of the</p>
<p>population.  The President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, is a Kurd</p>
<p>(For those who need a reminder, the Kurds are roughly 20% of<br />
the population, Sunnis 17%, Shi&#8217;ites about 60%; other groups such<br />
as Turkomens are statistical noise)</p>
<p>An early respondent to this essay brought up the Turks.  Out of<br />
nervousness about their large Kurdish minority, they have been<br />
threatening military action against any attempt to form Kurdistan<br />
for years; the conventional wisdom is that this is what kept the<br />
Kurds from declaring independence after Gulf War I.  But there are<br />
at least two reasons the Kurds can now calculate much lower odds of<br />
a Turkish coup de main.  One is that Turkey has its hopes for escape<br />
from Third-World-pesthole status pinned to joining the European Union<br />
which (to say the least) doesn&#8217;t look kindly on military adventurism<br />
in prospective members.  The second is the presence of American troops<br />
on the ground in North Iraq.   Any confrontation with them would turn<br />
a Turkish incursion into a disastrous failure.</p>
<p>All in all, the option to form Kurdistan has never looked more viable.<br />
This is why the Kurds&#8217; attitude towards Iraq-the-nation should be a<br />
reliable barometer.  The Baathist/Jihadi insurgency has very little<br />
strength in the Kurdish north; if the Kurds think it&#8217;s winning<br />
elsewhere, or that the politics of Iraq-the-nation has gone seriously<br />
dysfunctional, they&#8217;re very well positioned to bail out.  Conversely,<br />
as long as they figure there&#8217;s something to be gained by staying in<br />
Iraq, the rest of us can take that as a proxy that the place is<br />
improving.</p>
<p>Figuring this out has been a relief.  Now I can ignore the constant<br />
doomsaying by George Bush&#8217;s political enemies and just keep a weather<br />
eye on the Kurds.  While they&#8217;re happy, I won&#8217;t worry about Iraq too<br />
much.</p>
