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