In February 2008, a four-member Washington Institute delegation visited the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq on a fact-finding mission. The trip proved helpful in analyzing the KRG’s political and economic situation, both domestically and internationally. Following the trip, the delegation identified seven benchmarks for U.S. policymakers and other actors looking to assess the KRG’s prospects: economic development political freedom corruption security relations with the United States relations with the rest of Iraq relations with Turkey, Syria, and Iran
This Policy Focus includes detailed reports on each of these benchmarks. In chapter 1, Institute visiting fellow David Pollock reports on political freedoms, corruption, and economic development in the KRG. In chapter 2, senior fellow Soner Cagaptay reports on the KRG’s ties to the United States, the rest of Iraq, and Iraq’s neighbors. In the next two chapters, visiting Lafer international fellow Michael Knights analyzes the security benchmark, while Schusterman Young scholar Audrey Flake writes on the oil issue, providing a fuller view of the KRG’s Iraqi and U.S. ties.
Taken together, these trip reports highlight the important implications that the KRG’s internal and external situation hold for U.S. policy. The authors present new findings on a variety of issues, such as the KRG’s financial dependence on Baghdad—a factor that puts the lie to talk of Iraqi Kurdish independence. The report also sheds light on the KRG’s “love-hate relationship” with Iran as well as its policy of eschewing military action against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). On the latter point, the authors show how the presence of PKK bases inside the KRG and their use as launch points for terrorist attacks into Turkey continue to haunt Turkish-KRG and Turkish-Iraqi relations alike. Last but not least, this Policy Focus presents important findings on the KRG’s internal political stability and economic situation, debunking assumptions that its markets are booming or that it enjoys billions of dollars in Turkish investment.
CONTENTS
Introduction / 1 The Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq: An Inside Story / 2 360 Degrees from Irbil: The KRG’s Views of Its Neighborhood / 12 Guiding the Kurdish Role in Securing Northern Iraq / 21 The Oil Impasse / 31 Implications and Recommendations for U.S. Policy / 36
Illustrations Figure 1. Contested Areas in Northern Iraq (map) / 15 Figure 2. PKK Enclaves in Northern Iraq, February 2008 (map) / 17
The Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq: An Inside Story
A trip to the KRG—composed of the Irbil, Dahuk, and Sulaymaniya provinces in northern Iraq, with a mostly Kurdish population of approximately 4 million—is a study in political relativism. Compared to the rest of Iraq, or indeed, to some other countries in the area, this autonomous region is more stable, more prosperous, and more secure. At the same time, the KRG is not free of factionalism, repression, corruption, or economic deficiencies; like the rest of Iraq, it is still a work in progress. As the KRG’s prime minister, Nechirvan Barzani, put it in a recent interview, “Our political system, our judicial system, our physical infrastructure and our educational system are in great need of modernization, but we will persevere with the help of our friends and by the fruits of our labor.”
U.S. vice president Dick Cheney accentuated the positive side of this picture on a visit to the regional capital of Irbil in March 2008, the highest-level such U.S. visit ever, praising
"the special friendship between the United States and the people of Iraqi Kurdistan. The results have been quite remarkable for all to see, in terms of the development and prosperity of this part of Iraq. The transformation that has occurred in less than two decades [since the 1991 establishment of the U.S. protective “no-fly zone” over northern Iraq] sets an extraordinary example, I believe, for the rest of Iraq and for what is possible, with patience and resolve, when the United States and the people of Iraq join together in a common effort and strategic partnership"...
David Pollock
The Future of the Iraqi Kurds
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
1828 L Street N.W., Suite 1050 n Washington, DC 20036 n www.washingtoninstitute.org
Soner Cagaptay is a senior fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute. His writings on U.S.-Turkish relations and other issues have appeared in numerous scholarly journals and major international print media, including Middle East Quarterly, Middle Eastern Studies, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek. He also appears regularly on Fox News, CNN, NPR, Voice of America, al-Jazeera, BBC, CNN-Turk, and al-Hurra. His most recent book is Islam, Secularism, and Nationalism in Modern Turkey: Who Is a Turk? (Routledge, 2006). A historian by training, he holds a doctorate from Yale and was the Ertegun professor in Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies in 2006–2007. Currently, he serves as a visiting professor at Georgetown University and chair of the Turkey Advanced Area Studies Program at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute.
Audrey Flake is a Schusterman Young scholar at The Washington Institute, working on Iraq-related issues. She holds a bachelor’s degree in international and global studies from Brandeis University. Michael Knights is a London-based Lafer international fellow of The Washington Institute, specializing in the politics and security of Iraq, Iran, and the Persian Gulf states. Working with the U.S. Department of Defense, he has undertaken extensive research on lessons learned from U.S. military operations in Iraq since 1990. He earned his doctorate at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, and has worked as a security journalist for the Gulf States Newsletter and Jane’s Intelligence Review. He is currently vice president of Olive Group’s Strategic Analysis and Assessments business, SA2. Dr. Knights is the author of four Institute books on Iraq and the Persian Gulf states, most recently the April 2008 Policy Focus Provincial Politics in Iraq: Fragmentation or New Awakening? His other publications include Cradle of Conflict: Iraq and the Birth of the Modern U.S. Military (U.S. Naval Institute Press, 2005). David Pollock, a visiting fellow at The Washington Institute, was formerly a senior advisor for the Broader Middle East and a member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff. He has also served as chief of Near East/South Asia/Africa research at the U.S. Information Agency, where he was the top authority on public opinion in those regions. In addition to pioneering Institute papers on that subject—including the 1993 Policy Paper The “Arab Street”? Public Opinion in the Arab World and the April 2008 Policy Focus Slippery Polls: Uses and Abuses of Opinion Surveys from Arab States—he authored the June 2007 Policy Focus With Neighbors Like These: Iraq and the Arab States on Its Borders.
