"We view the current period as a turning point, just like 1918 and 1945 ..."--- Atlantic Council President Frederick Kempe

With Iraq's rapid descent into chaos and Maliki's inability to retake territory lost to both ISIS and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, there is growing posturing amongst Kurdish leaders and their supporters to declare independence.

During an interview with CNN's Christine Amanpour, the president of the northern Iraqi Kurdish Administrated Region, Massoud Barzani made several references to an independent Kurdish state. When asked, "Can Iraq hold together as a nation?" A smiling Barzani replied, "I don't think so." He then went on to say: "We are now living in a new era that is completely different from that Iraq that we always knew, the Iraq that we lived in one or two weeks ago." When asked, "Is this is the time for Kurdistan to seek the fulfilment of its long-time ambitions about self-determination, even independence?" Barzani replied. "During the last ten years we did everything in our power to build a new democratic Iraq but unfortunately the experience has not been successful." Barzani's emboldened remarks come on the heels of Peshmerga fighters securing Kirkuk. The city has reportedly 10 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and is currently part of Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, which runs north to the Turkish port.

Oddly enough, the Jewish Prime Minister Netanyahu welcomed the prospects of an independent Kurdistan. He said, "We should ... support the Kurdish aspiration for independence." He also described the Kurds "a nation of fighters [who] have proved political commitment and are worthy of independence".  The candid support for a separate homeland for the Kurds fails to mask Netanyahu's real delight at finally resurrecting the old British built Kirkuk-to-Haifa pipeline that use to supply oil to the Jewish state.

The events in Iraq coupled with overt support for an independent Kurdish state have rekindled memories of American efforts to redraw the map of the Middle East. Over the years, this process has been given different names by American politicians and think tanks. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor used the term "Arc of Crisis" and the Rand Corporation employed the term the "Greater Middle East". In 2006, the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice used the words "New Middle East". Speaking at a  press conference organised by the US State department, Rice said: "[w]hat we're seeing here [in regards to the destruction of Lebanon and the Israeli attacks on Lebanon], in a sense, is the growing-the ‘birth pangs'-of a ‘New Middle East' and whatever we do we [meaning the United States] have to be certain that we're pushing forward to the New Middle East [and] not going back to the old one." Others like Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters have even published a map of the New Middle East. However, there is one common denominator in all of these themes-divide and conquer- that is to exploit sectarian, ethnic and religious differences to curve out new states. Iraq after the dismemberment of Sudan appears to be America's latest target.

America successfully laid the seeds for Iraq's partition during the first Gulf War. The aim was to isolate Baghdad from the Kurdish areas to the North of Iraq and Shiite dominated areas to the South of Iraq. America accomplished this through the implementation of the infamous Operation Northern Watch to enforce the no-fly zone north of the 36th parallel in Iraq, and monitor Iraqi compliance via UN Security Council resolutions 678, 687, and 688.  Later, Operation Southern Watch was enforced to protect the no-fly zone south of the 33rd parallel in Iraq and monitor compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolutions 687, 688, and 949.

After the fall of Saddam in April 2003, America deliberately fostered an environment that encouraged sectarian violence especially amongst Iraq's Sunnis and Shias. America accomplished this feat through military operations that disproportionally targeted Sunnis and a biased political process that favoured the Shias. For instance, in October 2006, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution after a controversial vote, agreeing to revisit how to create a federalist state in 18 months. Sunni parliamentarians boycotted the vote, saying it would divide the country, and the measure passed 140-to-0 by the largely Shiite and Kurdish members. Shortly after the parliament vote, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution said in a news conference that dividing Iraq into three regions would stop the violence. He said, "... the Iraq problem can only be solved with regions."

The subsequent appointment of Maliki as Iraq's Prime Minister was clearly intended to accentuate divisions amongst Sunnis, Shias and the Kurds, and also to create circumstances conducive for America to intervene at any time and partition Iraq if she so desired.

The events in Iraq are indeed a turning point and represent a struggle for two competing narratives for the Middle East as a whole. The first narrative espoused by old Europe is to maintain the status quo i.e. to preserve the current map of the Middle East firmly rooted in the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916. The second narrative adopted by American policy makers is to redraw the borders of the Middle East. This is what Frederick Kempe envisages i.e. a birth of a "New Middle East", where old European agents and states, are replaced by American surrogates and new countries forever indebted to Pax Americana. However, both narratives are in danger of being trumped by the peoples' narrative for the region. This is the powerful desire to see a borderless Middle East firmly united under the Caliphate.

 

 

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by

Abu Hashim