I remember the house that my family lived in then: a squat, flat roofed thing that we all crammed into together, trying to find space. It was not a good place to live, and the times in the early 1980s didn’t make our lives any easier in Saddam’s Iraq. In spite of the difficulties we faced, perhaps because of them, my family didn’t express any strong views or philosophies, didn’t speak out in a way that could have been dangerous, and was all too aware that this was a place where the best they could do was try to fade into the background.

It didn’t work. An Iraqi special agent reported that my family was in contact with two of my brothers who had, he said, fled to the mountains and become a part of the PDK party in Iran. According to the agent, they were what were called at the time ‘Modify’ by the authorities, who didn’t want to use the term ‘peshmerga’.  

These were serious accusations, as the groups they were accused of joining were engaged in fighting with government forces almost every day at that time. Equally, we knew that the government had no compunction about hurting the families of those who had joined the fighters.

Even at four years old, I knew it was serious when an Iraqi intelligence officer came to the house. He insisted on speaking to my mother in front of all of us, perhaps to remind her of how much there was for her to lose. The officer told her that she had a choice: she could fetch my brothers back from Iran, or she could leave the camp to join them, but either way, there was no place left for her and her children there.

We didn’t have to leave right then, but we did have to leave, again and again. With no warning beyond the shouts of people who were also at their mercy, we would have to leave whatever house we were staying in, hiding somewhere else and knowing that if we were caught by the government’s people, we might be killed just for being there. We had to be ready to leave everything behind two to three times a week, every week. We had to stay out of sight, or stay away, until the officials passed and we could come back.

It meant that nothing was ever stable for me growing up, never steady, never settled. Whatever we had, wherever we were, it could vanish in an instant. Even so, whenever we ran, I wouldn’t think about what we had lost, but about what there might be that was better in the future. I dreamed about a better time, when we would be free from both poverty and the threat of sudden violence. I dreamed the kind of things that a child might dream, about living in a wonderful place with all my family around me. It didn’t seem like much to ask, except that, in those days, it seemed like far too much.

We learned to call my brothers what they really were: peshmerga, or those who face death. They weren’t ‘Modify’ some aberration to be eliminated, but people who loved freedom, and the land. In the camps they tried to teach us to love their nation, but it wasn’t the one we ended up learning to believe in when we were chased from our home three times a week.

It was a nice home, in spite of everything. I don’t want you to think that I’m stuck in the past, thinking about only the bad times. Our home was pleasant enough, the same as everyone else’s, with a flat roof made from mud and nothing to distinguish it from the houses of our neighbours.

All of these houses had three windows, one normal sized in the middle and two smaller ones flanking it. For most people, the middle room became the guest room, while for us, our parents had the one on the right, and the one on the left was a kitchen of sorts. The lavatory was at the bottom of a small, mud filled garden. Life was so bad in so many ways that we managed to get excited even about such small things.

Yet there were good things there. People valued life, knowing that they could lose theirs far too easily. We didn’t have the technology that people have today, but the smiles we saw were real ones.

Throughout all of it, I was growing, and so were my dreams. I imagined possibilities for myself every day, I’m sure everyone did, but I never imagined where my dreams would take me. They took me beyond the camp, beyond Iraq, and finally halfway across the world, to Europe.

If there is a lesson in all of this, it is this: no matter how bad things get in life, no matter how many times things change, hang onto your ability to dream. Those dreams may well take you further than you could have ever believed. They certainly did with me.

WHAT COMES next for the Kurdish region.. (photo credit:” REUTERS)

It’s a traditional end of the year question, but also a question that is being asked a lot at the moment as events in the surrounding countries shift almost daily. Things that may have been true as little as a week ago may not be true today, and almost certainly will not be true a week from now.

To even begin to guess at what might happen next, we need to understand what is happening now in the areas around Kurdistan. We need to work out what events such as the sudden withdrawal of US troops from Syria might mean for the future, as well as looking at domestic issues.

At first glance, the withdrawal of US troops might not look like much, since there were only ever a few thousand personnel on the ground anyway, and many of Kurdistan’s other allies will still be involved. However, the nature of modern warfare means that troops from the most technologically advanced nations can sometimes have an impact that is far from proportionate to their numbers.

Then there is the question of the move’s symbolic value. Syria became a battlefield in a proxy war reminiscent of the Cold War, with American troops on one side and Russians on the other. Only the presence of a third, common enemy kept it from being a direct confrontation by proxy. The US pulling out signals to Russia that it has carte blanche to do what it wants in the wider Middle East.

Other players in the international field, such as Turkey and Iran, may feel the same, and that may be particularly dangerous given their feelings about Syria’s Kurdish rebels. Turkey has already declared that they will be buried in ditches (in imagery reminiscent of war crimes the world over), while Iran no longer seems to be constrained by hard talk from the American side, now that the potential build up of anti-Iranian feeling there has started to fade.

Since 2010, it has been a worry to me that this conflict would rumble on and become dangerous to Kurdistan. Back then, it was a relatively small conflict, and there were plenty of younger Kurdish observers who wanted to believe that there was no chance of it being more. They had not lived through conflicts, and they did not know how easily they could turn into something bigger.

More than that, they did not understand the dangers inherent in the area; dangers that have turned it into a regular ground for conflict. Without addressing these issues, it seems hard to see how Kurdistan can ever get away from conflict. There are issues of Iran’s desire to express its regional power, focusing on a mixture of religion and resource acquisition in which one is often disguised as the other. There are genuine divisions over religion, and over the distribution of oil; always oil. There are the fears of the larger powers around Kurdistan that instability, or worse, a successful independence movement, might trigger the same in their own lands. There is the fact that figures truly committed to independence are unlikely ever to give up on it.

Worse, history teaches us that this is the dangerous moment. This is the moment when a Kurdish ally has withdrawn support from one group of Kurdish fighters, effectively leaving the way clear for Turkish, Syrian and other forces to attack them. As harsh as it sounds, that might not be a problem for Kurdistan if it were only those forces in Syria that were at risk, yet there is always a risk of contagion with this kind of conflict, forming a real potential for it to spill over Kurdistan’s borders as it has before.

One real problem is the uncertainty over US actions in the near future when America’s president seems to make a virtue of his unpredictability, and is very open about his wish to put America’s interests above all else. He is not the kind of man to be persuaded by the humanitarian arguments for keeping troops in place or withdrawing only once the situation is settled. As to what else Donald Trump may choose to do, that is anyone’s guess.

Does America as a whole plan to sell Kurdistan’s hopes down the river for the benefit of its other allies? That is harder to judge, but the case from history suggests that it would have no problem doing so. At the same time, Kurdistan faces a new prime minister and president combination, politics that are still largely fragmented, and an uneasy relationship with the Baghdad government. Any one of these factors might be enough to bring about a conflict, but Kurdistan seems to provide new potential sparks for the flame every day.

There are even risks beyond Kurdistan. Its ally, Israel, is protected in part by the limitations to Iran’s ability to strike at it. If Iran is able to act freely without the buffer of Kurdish held areas of Syria, wouldn’t that produce a much greater threat?

It is not enough, though, to point out the threats without at least suggesting some of the solutions. Obviously, those involved could sit and hope that the US decides to act more slowly, and making sure that the job is done in Syria, but that seems unlikely.

Instead, if the PKK finds itself faced by Turkish forces in Syria, I suspect that it must consider pulling out of Syria completely. It does not have the strength to take on Turkey, Syria and the Russians. Receiving a few weapons from the US to fight IS does not make them allies, and they are not protected by them. They have to realize that they have a humanitarian duty to both the civilians on the ground, and to neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan, both of which could be dragged into any conflict.

Within Kurdistan, we have to keep up the possibility of meaningful political engagement. It is possible. Our politicians are able to meet with people today who just a few months ago were calling for their imprisonment or execution. This is a time for talking and for peace, not for building up a conflict that could prove disastrous.

By Davan Yahya Khalil

The celebrations are set to be one of the most important expressions of Kurdistan’s identity, with Kurds around the world ready to celebrate their heritage.

President Masoud Barzani gave his traditional Newroz message to Kurdistan. In it, he spoke about the situations of Kurds around the world, touching on the efforts of the peshmerga against ISIS, the escalation of violence in Turkey, and the possibility of a solution to the crisis in Syria. He also spoke about Kurdistan’s relations with Baghdad, saying that independence was really the only viable option for Kurdistan, but that it would discuss its relationship with Baghdad before any referendum. He also urged patience over the economic crisis, saying that measures were in place to resolve it, and addressed the issue of Kurdistan’s presidency, suggesting the need for new elections.

So, what is in store for Kurdistan in the year to come? One thing that seems certain is that the next year won’t be quite the same as the last. Things are changing too fast in and around Kurdistan for that to be the case. Some of the challenges might have a familiar feel to them, but this is likely to be a year for dealing with those challenges, rather than reacting to them and simply trying to contain them, as Kurdistan has been forced to do previously.

The fight against ISIS is likely to continue, but changes in the political situations around Kurdistan may have a beneficial effect when it comes to that conflict. If Syria can be stabilised with the proposed federal format, then some of the dangers coming from that direction can be reduced, allowing for more concentration of effort on the conflicts closest to Kurdistan. The peshmerga will undoubtedly continue to do a great job, and I would like to echo President Barzani’s comments in thanking them for their efforts.

Economically, there are signs that there might be continuing challenges, because of the slowdown in the world economy. Yet Kurdistan will probably also find itself better placed to deal with these challenges than it has been. It is currently working to restructure elements of its economy on more sustainable lines, issues around the transportation of oil may be possible to resolve, and Kurdistan’s burgeoning international relations may well start to have an economic impact in the near future.

In terms of Kurdistan’s independence, there is every chance that this will be the year when it holds its referendum on the issue. The only thing that has been holding it back has been the need for stability before it can organise the process. The same disruptions that have made elections harder to bring about have also gotten in the way of Kurdistan’s ability to ask its people what they want for its future.

Yet it seems likely that at least some of those issues will start to stabilise. It also seems like that the same conferences that allow people to discuss the future of the region more generally will also allow Kurdistan to discuss the future with Baghdad and come to terms over the shape their respective futures will take. This might well be the year when Baghdad realises that Kurdistan isn’t likely to be coming back, and so seeks to explore the circumstances under which it will leave.

There may even start to be some answer to the refugee questions in Kurdistan, although with so many people displaced into the region, there are few quick answers to an ongoing crisis. What we may find, however, is that as the pressures from the other aspects are reduced, the knock on effects on the refugee crisis are also helped.

These are all important issues for the coming year, yet we must not forget about the importance of simple day to day life. It is easy to focus on crisis management and the large problems that Kurdistan will hopefully be able to solve in the coming year, but countries are composed of people, and Newroz is an opportunity for everyone in Kurdistan to reflect on their lives for the coming year.

It is also an opportunity for them to reflect on the history and traditions that have brought them to this point. Newroz is an important tradition, not just because of the sense of the new it brings, but because of the connection it provides to the past. It is an opportunity to remember what it means to be Kurdish, wherever in the world you happen to be. It is a chance to celebrate in ways that have become traditional, and to celebrate a long held connection to the past.

History is important to the Kurds, providing both a sense of identity and an understanding of the surrounding world. There may be difficulties in celebrating Newroz this year in some parts of the world, but in Kurdistan at least, the security forces will set out to allow people to celebrate it undisturbed, and in the coming year, perhaps Kurdistan will be able to build a new chapter in its long cherished history.

FILE PHOTO: Iraqi Kurdish regional President Massoud Barzani speaks during news conference with Ammar al-Hakim, leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), in Baghdad, Iraq, September 29, 2016. REUTERS/Khalid al Mousily/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: Iraqi Kurdish regional President Massoud Barzani speaks during news conference with Ammar al-Hakim, leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), in Baghdad, Iraq, September 29, 2016. REUTERS/Khalid al Mousily/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Iraqi Kurdish regional President Massoud Barzani speaks during news conference with Ammar al-Hakim, leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), in Baghdad, Iraq, September 29, 2016. REUTERS/Khalid al Mousily/File Photo
While the move is hardly unexpected given President Barzani’s long term commitment to Kurdistan’s independence, its timing says a lot about the conflicts in the wider region, and about the potential for change.

Those conflicts have both shown that Kurdistan is capable of functioning independently, and served to increase its separation from Iraq. It has necessitated border controls around the region, and forced the solidification of governmental structures within it. It has served to increase calls for independence within the region, while at the same time furthering a sense of national identity there.

The announcement suggested that the inhabitants of regions claimed by Kurdistan but disputed by surrounding countries, including Kirkuk and Sinjar, would be allowed to take part in the referendum. This appears to signal an intention to consider them as part of any independent Kurdistan, particularly if the votes there match any wider pro-independence vote.

The statement that the referendum would be closely followed by elections can be read a number of ways. One is that those elections will serve as an opportunity to put the government in place that a fresh state will require, returning to regular elections after a period of disturbance thanks to the war.

Another is suggested by the words of Hoshiyar Zebari, who said that the referendum would not ‘automatically’ trigger independence, but would give Kurdistan a stronger negotiating position. It is possible, therefore, that the elections could act to turn the results of the referendum into action by allowing Kurdistan’s people to select a team to put it in motion.

A third, and more worrying possibility is the connection it makes between the referendum and the election, perhaps suggesting that President Barzani is staking his accumulated political capital on the result.

It remains to be seen how others will react, although it appears that Kurdish officials are already seeking talks with Kurdistan’s neighbours to avoid political or other conflicts based on any possible move to independence. Such conflicts remain a real possibility, especially with the continuing disputes over Kirkuk, which several non-Kurdish militias have promised to ‘reclaim’ from Kurdish forces.

The risk is that a conflict drawing to a close through concerted efforts from all sides could reopen as those who do not want an independent Kurdistan act against it. These could include powerful neighbours such as the Syrian regime, Iran or Turkey, but Baghdad remains the biggest potential threat to the process.

In a way, the announcement of the referendum changes little for Kurdistan, since the threats and possibilities for it remain essentially the same as they have been for many years now. At the same time, it seems likely that the announcement of 25th of September as the date will bring the issues involved into sharper focus, forcing rounds of serious discussion and debate in the months to come.

On the whole though, the coming referendum has come at the only time it can come, in the space between the winding down of the conflict against IS and the reforming of an Iraq too stable to split cleanly. President Barzani appears to have seen that potential, and the announcement of the referendum is likely to shake things up around Kurdistan, potentially in ways none of us can predict.

We were in prison camps because my tribe, the Barzani, had dared to rebel against Saddam Hussein in the 1970s, looking for independence. The government’s troops had come to our villages, tearing those villages apart as they forced us to move to camps closer to the big cities of Kurdistan. Our day to day lives had become brutally controlled, we could be killed at any moment, and food was scarce. Yet in some ways, the last of these helped to save my life too, because it left me as one of the smallest boys there for my age.

Other boys my age found themselves loaded onto trucks along with the grown men, deemed to be big enough to be able to fight. They had been told that they were going for a meeting with Saddam, but most probably believed that they were going to be forced to serve in the army. That had happened before, and it made sense when they only wanted the men.The assumption was that the Barzani, who had acquired a reputation for successful guerrilla tactics in the mountains, were wanted for the ongoing conflict with Iran.

We now know what actually happened: on the 31st of July 1983, more than 8000 men and boys from the Barzani tribe were taken from the camps where they were being held by Saddam Hussein’s army, driven out into the desert, machine gunned and left in mass graves. Their bodies were bulldozed over, without checking whether they were alive or dead. While the specific bodies have not been identified, similar mass graves have been found in several spots in Iraq and Saddam Hussein, when asked what had happened to the Barzanis, said that “They betrayed their country and so they went to Hell”. The implications were clear.

The massacre of 1983 is often forgotten when we remember the larger genocide of the Anfal, which followed five years later. It is seen as a footnote at best, something to be ignored completely at worst. It is understandable that this might be the case. The Anfal involved the systematic murder and displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. It created a refugee crisis that lasted for many years. It involved the use of chemical weapons against civilian targets, as at Halabja, and it included attempts to fundamentally change the ethnic makeup of Northern Iraq. Compared to that, the murder of 8000 people might not seem as important. Yet it is crucial to remember the massacre of 1983 as well.

It is crucial for a couple of reasons. The first is because itserved as a precursor to the Anfal, with its murder of 182 000 people. The Anfal is, itself, an event that is often forgotten internationally, in spite of the scale of the killing across 1988-9, but it becomes even easier to forget when it is seen as an isolated moment of madness, not connected to anything that went before. That is the story that some people would like the world to hear, but it is not a true story.

The murders of 1983 prove that. They instead point towards a pattern, a connected together thing that built in scope until it became something unimaginable. They show that the Anfal was something that was planned towards over a period of time, and suggest that it was something that might even have been stopped if people had seen it in time. Certainly, they show that genocides do not come out of nowhere. There are warning signs, and we do need to be prepared to act when we see them.

But that is not the only reason why remembering 1983 matters. It matters because every one of those 8000 men and boys was a life cut short. It matters because in any tragedy of that scale, it is vital to remember the human stories behind the numbers. To remember that these were real people, taken from their families.

People who were loved, and missed, and mourned. While not everyone reading this will be able to understand what it is like to lose someone to this kind of mass murder, it is likely that everyone will have mourned the loss of a relative for another reason at some point. The temptation is to think of a tragedy like this as something emotionally different. While it certainly represents a special situation, the emotions remain the same. The sheer numbers involved can make it seem like the situation is something impossible to understand, but the fact is that loss is one of the most understandable of all human emotions. We must not forget that.

Remembering also matters for another reason. It matters because it shows how quickly civil conflict can escalatebreaches of the standards that all governments are bound to uphold. The situation in the 1970s and 1980s in Iraq was one where the Baghdad government’s response to insurgencies aimed at creating an independent Kurdistan escalated beyond anything proportionate, or reasonable, or even sane. That is as relevant today, when we find governments using disproportionate force to attack civilian targets, as it was in 1983.

It will always be relevant. Just a short while ago, people commemorated the anniversary of the genocidal killings of Srebrenica, in the Balkans. It was a moment of mass murder with remarkable similarities to 1983, with men singled out and taken away on trucks, never to return. With an international community standing by when those men should have been able to expect its protection. I mention it here for one reason: because it shows that we do not learn.

We all hope for a world where people are not murdered simply for their ethnicity, or where that murder can go unremarked by the wider media for years, yet the massacre of Barzani men and boys did not stop such things from happening. They did not encourage governments to stop the murders in Srebrenica. They did not stop the Anfal. They have not stopped the attacks on Kobane or in Iraq by IS. They were a lesson from history that we did not learn.

Worse, one look at the world today shows that it can still happen. It is still happening. As a boy, I saw soldiers bayonetting sacks in case people were hiding inside them. I saw friends and the fathers of friends dragged away, never to be seen again. My own father avoided it only because he tricked his way off the trucks. How many children will see their fathers dragged onto trucks today, or tomorrow? We live in a world where we have clear definitions of international law, and clear limits on what governments may do, but the truth is that these limits are only sporadically enforced. International law applies in practice only to those on the losing end of wars. It has become a club with which to beat ones enemies rather than a genuinely upheld benchmark. Certainly, it did little to protect the Kurds in 1983 or in 1988.

There have been answers proposed for this. Part of the reason my people are so insistent that they should have a fully independent homeland is because history has taught them that they cannot rely on other governments for their safety. Not when those governments have targeted them, imprisoned them, and murdered them on a scale that had not been seen since the Second World War. I feel that an independent Kurdish state is justified for this and many other reasons, but today is not about playing the politics of independence.

Today is about remembrance and looking forward. It is about taking the time to think about those who died, but also about those who are not yet born. It is about understanding what produced a tragedy that cost 8000 men and boys their lives, but also about understanding what can be done to prevent it from happening again.

An event like this is painful to remember, no matter how much time passes. Yet it is also vital to remember, because of what happens every time we forget. Remember the 8000 men and boys who died on this day in 1983. Remember what happened to them, but also remember that it is never enough to simply say “this can never happen again.” We must make sure it does not. We owe that, not just to those who have died in massacres, but to the future generations who we want to be sure do not.

We have existed here for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. There have been Kurds in parts of what is now Iraq under a succession of countries, and a succession of different outside rulers. For the last few centuries, we have had no state, and been ruled from afar by people who have had little understanding about, or concern for, our needs and lifestyle. Attempts to break free of such control in the past have met with hostility, and even violence.

Finally, a chance has come to craft borders for ourselves, around lands that are already outside the control of other states in every sense that matters. This is not about stealing lands locked into another state by time and tradition, but about giving formal recognition to an arrangement that already exists on the ground in every other sense.

It will not be easy, negotiating with Baghdad afterwards. It would be foolish to pretend otherwise, when their instinct will be to try to hold on to Kurdistan as tightly as possible, and other powers will apply pressure in order to manage their own domestic situations. The creation of a new country is inevitably a complex undertaking, with no short cuts to making it work.

We must get out of Iraq’s artificial system though, because, almost since its inception as a post-World War I project by the Great Powers, it has done little but fuel conflict in the region.

From domestic instability to the terrors of genocide, the forcing together of disparate groups within a nation that has only ever existed as a cartographer’s fantasy has cost many thousands of lives and contributed to wider conflicts that continue to tear the world apart today.

Forcing that shattered whole back together again is not the answer. Indeed, the pressures required to make it work would be as likely to explode as to achieve anything useful, reigniting conflict at exactly the moment when we all most want it to stop. A stable, independent Kurdistan is a more natural option, and one that is likely to contribute more to the peace of the surrounding region.

It would be good for Kurdistan people, obviously, allowing us the country that we have wanted for so long. It would also be good for Iraq, though, because it would take away one of the fault lines that was inherent in its construction a century ago. It should even be good for the region around Kurdistan, taking away the pressures of many local conflicts by giving Kurdish minorities a country that they could call their own.

There are those who argue against Kurdistan on the basis that a new country might destabilise the situation around it exactly at the point when it is settling down. Instead, isn’t it more likely that it would bring peace, soothing one of the core conflicts in the region while providing a safe place for at least some of those affected by them? In that sense, an independent Kurdistan is not just a desirable thing for its inhabitants, but an essential thing for the world as a whole.

America has yet to intervene in the conflict in Kurdistan, citing its support for both the Baghdad government and the KRG. Yet, by failing to intervene, and by failing to support the continuation of Kurdistan, it risks accidentally handing power to Iran as the situation devolves into conflict. Even if Iraq somehow manages to pull itself back together by force, the American ideal of it providing a neat balance to its Iranian opponents can never be realised.

In refusing to support Kurdistan, America has abandoned its most consistent ally in the Middle East. It is more consistent than Iraq, which was actively its enemy in two major wars. It is far more consistent than Iran, which has long since regarded it as an enemy, or Syria, which is aligned with Russia. It is more consistent than Turkey, which has spent the past years steadily moving away from democracy and has cracked down on tens of thousands of its own citizens. It has also abandoned one of the few places within the Middle East that represents a consistent friend to another of its major allies: Israel.

Doing so might not destroy Kurdistan directly, but it opens the door to those who would. Maybe not Iraq, because Baghdad has its own problems at the moment, but Iran and Shiite militias may well seek the end of Kurdistan to the benefit of the Hashid al-Shaabi.

Let’s not pretend that America has no culpability in that. It is American made weapons that are being used against the peshmerga, American made weapons that are allowing Baghdad to steal back territory that it didn’t have the willingness to protect from Daesh, but now wants when the situation is easier for it. If this produces true civil war, then Iran is likely to be the only side to benefit.

Why would it seek to do so? The expansion of its power and the destruction of potential opponents are both powerful incentives, but there are more specific things that we need to worry about in a destabilised situation. It seems likely that, if it is able to contribute to an unstable situation in Kurdistan through militias it controls, Iran will seek to carve out a northern corridor for itself with which to link up with Syria. If it does so, it will allow for the two allies in the region to connect up and move forces easily within the Middle East. That would make both more powerful and create a more dangerous situation for the world.

The temptation is to dismiss this, and say that it is not about Iran, but about Baghdad attempting to piece its country back together or impose order within its borders. However, such a view would ignore the role that Iranian controlled militias are playing in the conflict, and the amount that Iran stands to gain. An excuse to intervene would, at the very least, provide it with an opportunity to deal with its own lingering issues with its Kurdish population.

Can we imagine that it wouldn’t seek to try to destroy a major US ally in the Middle East at a moment when the US is increasing pressure on it? Can we imagine that it is not taking advantage of the publicity offered by Jalal Talabani’s family, seeking to use that connection as an excuse to interfere?

It will not do this directly, of course. The Syrian and Yemeni conflicts have already damaged the Iranian economy through the need to commit resources, while many Iranian soldiers have been killed in the Syrian war. Instead, Iran is engaging in a proxy war using groups such as Hashid al-Shaabi, paying them using money from Iraqi Shiite benefactors and captured oil. If it succeeds, it gains power and oil wealth. Even if it fails, it loses nothing, and may even see Iraq weakened as a rival in the region.

The danger posed by the Iranian backed Hashid al-Shaabi cannot be underestimated. Already, it is taking Kurdish women, destroying houses, while banning any cultural expression of Kurdish identity, including its flag and language. If allowed to continue, it seems undeniable that they will seek to employ the kind of tactics used to try to repress the Kurdish people at other times, with their power grab turning into a slaughter.

I doubt that will spur the US into action, because when has it ever stood up for Kurds just because it is the right thing to do? What might is the appearance of Iranian military bases around Kirkuk. Not Iraqi, not militia, Iranian. Once they realise what is happening, they might decide to act to prevent expansion, but by then it might be too late.

The danger in all this is that the White House is simply not getting all the information available regarding this conflict. It is being shown an image of a simple internal struggle between two of its allies, and assumes that it can afford to sit back and see who emerges as the victor. Instead, it is facing a proxy war between a Kurdish side representing its interests and a set of militias that owe far more to the Iranians than to Baghdad. Failure to intervene will do untold damage to the Kurdish population, but it will also dramatically impact on US interests in the Middle East.

Originally published on “The Jerusalem Post”

By Davan Yahya Khalil

The Munich Security Conference is one of the key occasions allowing major powers to discuss threats at local, regional and global levels. Over 450 crucial decision makers from around the world will be there to forge closer ties, discuss common security concerns, and plan cooperation on strategic issues. It is a mark of prestige, and of Kurdistan’s importance within the Middle East, that two of its key politicians have been invited to speak there.

Part of their role at the conference will be to stress Kurdistan’s ongoing importance to the stability of the region. Now that the fight against ISIS/Daesh has seen it pushed out of the lands it has held, the temptation among some at the conference may be to see the situation as essentially complete, and to withdraw the support given to Kurdistan as a major bulwark against it. It will be crucial for both Masrour and Nechirvan Barzani to emphasise that the situation in and around Iraq remains unstable, and for them to stress Kurdistan’s capacity to prevent that situation from devolving into renewed violence.

What major challenges will they highlight in their speeches? The Middle East is hardly a region that is short of potential dangers, so it is impossible to know for certain which will form the focus of those speeches, but it is possible to highlight some of the potential threats that face both Kurdistan and the world.

One potential source of threats in the immediate future is that the end of the conflict against ISIS has allowed space for rivalries between the powers of the region to renew themselves. Pressures that were put on hold in the face of greater threats have started to come to the fore once more. Turkey has sought to push back against potential opponents both at home and abroad in recent weeks, the Syrian government has tried to reassert control of its former territories, and Iran’s long term nuclear ambitions appear to be continuing in the face of threats from the USA.

In Iraq, the Baghdad government has clamped down on Kurdish moves towards independence since the referendum there in November, taking back Kirkuk, while Kurdistan’s other neighbours have also sought to apply pressure to it in order to contain any separatist impulses in their own Kurdish citizens.

In terms of other threats, there are ongoing pressures from a standoff between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which have been trying to demonstrate their power in recent years through a series of proxy conflicts. Those conflicts potentially affect Kurdistan, and risk it becoming an arena for the efforts of those larger powers. Then there are the influences of world powers such as the USA and Russia, which appear to be seeking greater disengagement from the region while trying not to give up their influence there.

Given those varying pressures, Kurdistan’s politicians must chart a careful course between them. They must stress that Kurdistan’s role in the region is not finished simply because its peshmerga have done their job in fighting ISIS. They must emphasise that attempting to force borders back to the places they were before the beginning of the war would only spark further conflict. They must find a way to show the world that the tensions inherent in some of the artificial countries of the region will only continue to bubble into violence if they are not addressed.

It is also crucial to consider what the conference can achieve for Kurdistan, simply because of its role as a forum in which to meet many world leaders in the same place. At its most basic, it may form a neutral environment in which Masrour and Nechirvan Barzani can seek to defuse some of the dangerous opposition to Kurdistan’s autonomy. It may allow them to seek allies and support from beyond the usual narrow range of actors in the Middle East.

Even though this is a security conference, there is also the potential to build Kurdistan’s economic future. While it is vital that they are able to keep Kurdistan’s situation as a region under siege from its neighbours on the international agenda, it is also important that they show that it is still a region that is open for business. In the modern world, economic and security factors are intrinsically bound up with one another, so that the ability to demonstrate safety is vital to the region’s economic interests, and economic success is vital to the maintenance of a strong security force.

Whatever approach Masrour and Nechirvan Barzani take at the Munich Security Conference, it is vital that they succeed. They need to be able to make the world see the security concerns of the coming year in a way that demonstrates that Kurdistan is still at the heart of those issues, and that keeps the eyes of the world on the region.

The referendum felt, at the time, like both the culmination of years of work and the first step along a new path for Kurdistan.

The immediate aftermath quickly dashed those hopes. It featured invasion from a combination of Iranian and Iraqi forces, the seizing of Kirkuk when the PUK’s leaders ordered the withdrawal of peshmerga forces, ostensibly to protect them, and the quashing of attempts to achieve independence.

The time since has featured a growing Iranian economic and military influence within Kurdistan that is troubling, including direct Iranian attacks on Kurdish soil to target what it perceives as its enemies. There have also been increased efforts to put down any sense of Kurdish separatism by Iran within its own borders. The message from the recent bombing by Iran seems to be a clear repetition of the message sent in the immediate aftermath of the referendum: that Iran feels able to reach into Kurdistan with impunity.

The referendum’s political aftermath created almost as many shockwaves within Kurdistan as the military impact. The backlash against the moves towards independence claimed senior political figures, most notably in the resignation of President Massoud Barzani, with the result that a new generation of Kurdish politicians had to move to ensure stability and engage in rapid dialogue with Kurdistan’s international partners.

Old fault lines have reopened, with the KDP’s clear commitment to independence at odds with the PUK’s apparent betrayal of the referendum in siding with the Iranians. It has left Kurdistan as partisan and divided as it ever was, the need to come together to solve the crises of former years blown apart by the aftermath of what should have been Kurdistan’s most unifying moment. There has been significant jockeying abroad by figures within the PUK in particular to present themselves as the ‘official’ face of Kurdistan, and thus secure a seat at the table in those international discussions where geopolitical issues affecting the region are decided.

More than a year on, and it is still too early to assess the long term impact of the referendum. The long-term is yet to happen, and in many ways, Kurdistan is still sorting out the fallout from the vote. Even so, some general trends can be identified.

One key one seems to be that, counterintuitively, it is not Iraq that matters in this context so much as Iran. Baghdad’s influence is what Kurdistan is seeking to break free from, yet Iraq is beset by its own issues, and Iran is the major regional power. Iran is also strongly committed to preventing any Kurdish breakaway within its own territory, and sees any attempt by Iraqi Kurdistan to find independence as likely to result in contagion within its Kurdish population.

Another point is the reinforcement of the notion that Kurdistan can rely on its international partners for support right up to the point where they must pick a side. It frequently gets warm words from allies around the world, and did even in the days leading up to the referendum, yet Kurdistan must not forget that major international players such as the US are interested in Kurdistan largely because of what it can contribute to their own interests. The aftermath of the referendum has shown that there is no reasonable expectation of practical support for independence unless Kurdistan can offer them something in return.

In this sense, Kurdistan must take responsibility for its own independence. As Martin Luther King Jr once put it ‘Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.’ The temptation for some in Kurdistan is to say that it is too dangerous now to keep pressing for independence, and that we must hope for the world to give it to us without any further argument. That is not how these things work, though. The world will not give Kurdistan independence, because it is too invested in things as they are. Kurdistan must seek opportunities to take that independence instead.

At this point, the push created from that first referendum is gone, put down by outside forces with the assistance of some within Kurdistan who saw that independence would harm their own chances at power. Yet I feel certain that there will be further referenda in the future, to underscore that Kurdistan’s desire for sovereignty has not gone away. Patience is needed, but also the determination not to simply wait for independence to happen but to go out and actively create the conditions where Kurdistan’s neighbours will have no choice but to allow it.

Two local boys in the barzan region, Photo by Mohammad Zorgvani (image)

Since 1991, Kurdistan has had numerous opportunities to grasp greater autonomy and even independence. From its institution as an autonomous region, it could have insisted on full independence. Again, on the fall of Saddam, it could have declared the moment for an end to its links to Baghdad. It could have used any of the many political and military crises in Iraq as the catalyst, or Baghdad’s refusal to honour the terms of its funding agreements.

None of these moments came to pass, though. Even the referendum that clearly showed the desire for independence did not lead to it, as the countries surrounding Kurdistan employed military force to prevent the possibility, while the outside world stood by to allow them to do so. In this situation, we must ask whether Kurdistan is doomed to always squander the opportunities it has for independence, and always to be caught on the cusp of it, or whether it will actually happen at some point in the near future.

The elements that have caused the many failed pushes towards independence are relatively well established by this point, resting on a combination of internal division and outside pressure. Internally, it seems surprising that there should be so many arguments about the idea of independence when it seems clear that the vast majority of Kurdistan’s citizens support it, yet those arguments persist, perhaps because many of them aren’t really about independence. They’re about who would have power in a post independence state, what form that state would take, and the impact on long established groups.

These internal divisions found their most dangerous expression in Kurdistan’s civil war, which established dangerous precedents for the surrounding states being able to enter Kurdistan to interfere, showed that they would see few sanctions for doing so, and reinforced the dangerous perception in the outside world that Kurdistan’s factions would be incapable of running a state together without the arguments becoming too great. Even today, in the aftermath of the referendum, the tendency has been for the region’s main parties to retreat into their long held bastions of influence around key cities.

The outside pressures on Kurdistan are, if anything, even greater. The difficulty in charting a path towards independence is largely that it requires balancing the interests of a number of surrounding nations, several of which are entirely set against the possibility and prepared to back up that position with force. Turkey, Iran and Syria all have sections of their Kurdish populations who are either engaged in active resistance to the governments there or have been in the recent past. All tend to see any move towards independence by Iraqi Kurdistan as a potential rallying call for their own Kurdish areas, and feel that they must stop it in order to prevent any spread of the idea.

The wider world, meanwhile, tends to make all the right noises about Kurdistan’s people having the autonomy to decide what to do with their lands, and calls them close allies when they are fighting wars on their behalf against a range of threats, yet settles for a kind of disinterested neutrality from a distance while Kurdistan’s neighbours are putting down any move towards independence. They do so in the name of not wishing to interfere further in the Middle East’s affairs, or in the even more nebulous name of stability.

These three elements seem like a toxic coincidence, a trio of factors flung from the darkness to beset Kurdistan in just the wrong combination, yet there is nothing coincidental about them. Instead, Kurdistan suffers from one great factor that is both curse and blessing: an abundance of natural resources, particularly oil. These resources are what the region’s factions have historically fought for control of, what its neighbours cannot afford to let go of along with their Kurdish areas, and what the international community wishes to see continuing to flow outwards from the area, even at the cost of human rights or sovereignty.

Put like that, is Kurdistan doomed to stay in the position it is, trapped by the very resources that give it the economic capacity to sustain independence? There are certainly those who would argue that Kurdistan is better off seeking an accommodation within the existing Iraqi state, yet does the answer have to be so limited.

Kurdistan’s Jewish allies in Israel have shown that an independent, self supporting state in the Middle East is possible, and have demonstrated the importance of such a state for a people if they are to be truly safe in the face of groups who would see them as lesser citizens at best and a problem to be removed at worst. They have also shown Kurdistan that there are at least some countries nearby who are willing to offer it support as an independent, moderate voice in the region.

Does this mean that independence will not be both difficult and potentially dangerous? No, of course not. It is a possibility though, and an opportunity. Kurdistan has failed to grasp far too many such opportunities in the past, so perhaps this is the moment when it must. What will future generations think of us if we do not achieve independence? Will they think that we did not have the opportunity, or that we squandered it when it was there?