“George W. Bush is a hero.” General Sirwan Barzani utters these words with quiet satisfaction. “The best thing that happened to Iraq, at least to us Kurds, was its liberation in 2003. He liberated all of Iraq from dictatorship. It was a great move.”
It is not often you hear words like these, especially in Iraq. But Barzani is no ordinary Iraqi. As well as being the nephew to the former President of Iraqi Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani, he is also first cousin of the incumbent, Nechirvan Barzani, a general in the Kurdish Peshmerga army, and a Telecoms billionaire.
I first met him in October 2021, just after the last Iraqi elections, at his base, the Black Tiger camp (Black Tiger was his military call sign), on the disputed borders of the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Barzani is a hero to many in the region. He and his troops were the tip of the Kurdish spear against Isis in northern Iraq. They fought them hard and won, but they paid in blood — an old story for Barzani who spent the Nineties battling Saddam Hussein’s forces in the Kurdish mountains.
The results of that election were, as ever, reflective of the sectarianism that strafes Iraqi politics. The Sadrist Movement, led by Shi’ite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr — an Iraqi nationalist and no friend of Iran — was the largest party with 73 seats, but was short of the majority needed to form a government; the Iran-backed Shi’ite Al-Fatah saw its vote drop from 48 to just 17. Sunni parties formed the second sectarian block. The Kurds came in third, with their major party, the Kurdistan Patriotic Union (KDP), taking 16 seats. The various blocs then haggled for more than a year to form a functioning government, until, in October 2022, Mohammed Shia’ Sabbar Al-Sudani was nominated to take office as Prime Minister. Iraqi democracy had finally kicked into gear again.
“Twenty years on, the situation is good, especially when compared to 2003,” Barzani told me last week. “We finally have democracy. It’s not perfect of course, and it may take 20 or 30 years for it to become mature, but it exists.” Democracy is an important word for Barzani — and for the Kurds of northern Iraq generally. During my trip to Black Tiger Camp just after the elections, I remember noticing how the tip of each soldier’s right index finger was covered in violet phosphorous-based ink, signifying that their vote had been cast. Barzani’s, I noted, seemed a little more faded than the rest. “It’s because he voted first,” an aide told me.
But if Barzani is now cautiously content with the state of Iraqi democracy, that is only half the story of post-2003 Iraq. The Kurds remain the world’s largest stateless population; their desire for a homeland stretches back centuries. I was in the region’s capital Erbil to cover the 2017 referendum when, against the implicit desires of Washington and the unambiguous orders of Baghdad, 92.73% of the Kurdistan region of Iraq voted to become an independent state.
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SubscribeThe old mantra of statecraft from the early to mid 20th century focused on self-determination for ethnic, religious, racial, and cultural groups, as presumably a people with their own state are free to build that state and its laws according to their culture and values. It assumed that the differences between peoples were too vast and asking discordant cultures to coexist in a single state was a recipe for constant civil disorder, assassinations, rioting, guerilla groups, etc. It came out of a recognition of the failures and problems of Europe’s multicultural empires, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire. It was a driving force in the settlement treaties for both World Wars, the breakup of colonial empires, and the creation of Israel. It was a pragmatic philosophy that attempted to find the best solution for the world as it is, not an idealist dream that promised some utopia somewhere down the road. It was recognized and assumed that there might be wars between neighbors, but such wars would be contained, organized, and fought between disciplined armies targeting military objectives, all in all a less destructive and less bloody punctuation between periods of relative stability. Globalism, of course, an ideology that strives for a unified world government, explicitly rejected such notions, and this philosophy was largely abandoned, save in the case of Israel/Palestine, which already had a long history, and Yugoslavia, where it was assumed the new states would eventually become part of a larger EU (most of them have). The US always pushed for a unified Iraq for economic reasons (oil) and because they knew any Shi’ite state would fall into the orbit of Iran. In refusing to recognized the disparate cultures and histories of Iraq’s people, they created an unstable state in need of constant support to prevent it descending into anarchy. This is another example of the failure of globalism. At the end of the day, disparate cultures that don’t want to coexist can only be held together by brute force, a dictator like Saddam, or a situation like this. Iraq will eventually be three or more states. Whenever the US military gets tired of spending the resources to hold the lid on the pot, it will invariably boil over.
The old mantra of statecraft from the early to mid 20th century focused on self-determination for ethnic, religious, racial, and cultural groups, as presumably a people with their own state are free to build that state and its laws according to their culture and values. It assumed that the differences between peoples were too vast and asking discordant cultures to coexist in a single state was a recipe for constant civil disorder, assassinations, rioting, guerilla groups, etc. It came out of a recognition of the failures and problems of Europe’s multicultural empires, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire. It was a driving force in the settlement treaties for both World Wars, the breakup of colonial empires, and the creation of Israel. It was a pragmatic philosophy that attempted to find the best solution for the world as it is, not an idealist dream that promised some utopia somewhere down the road. It was recognized and assumed that there might be wars between neighbors, but such wars would be contained, organized, and fought between disciplined armies targeting military objectives, all in all a less destructive and less bloody punctuation between periods of relative stability. Globalism, of course, an ideology that strives for a unified world government, explicitly rejected such notions, and this philosophy was largely abandoned, save in the case of Israel/Palestine, which already had a long history, and Yugoslavia, where it was assumed the new states would eventually become part of a larger EU (most of them have). The US always pushed for a unified Iraq for economic reasons (oil) and because they knew any Shi’ite state would fall into the orbit of Iran. In refusing to recognized the disparate cultures and histories of Iraq’s people, they created an unstable state in need of constant support to prevent it descending into anarchy. This is another example of the failure of globalism. At the end of the day, disparate cultures that don’t want to coexist can only be held together by brute force, a dictator like Saddam, or a situation like this. Iraq will eventually be three or more states. Whenever the US military gets tired of spending the resources to hold the lid on the pot, it will invariably boil over.
Anyone remember Tibet?
Anyone remember Tibet?
Viva Kurdistan!
Viva Kurdistan!
And we learned nothing, and are destroying another place by war now.
Who is this “we”? The locals seem quite capable of causing destruction themselves.
The US/UK war machine – which also created the conditions for the current state of affairs. This shouldn’t be a surprise after the murdering of over a million civilians and allowing Isis to grow in power next door (what could go wrong? Oh wait…).
Apparently forever-wars are a perversely popular thing in the Anglosphere, judging from the never-ending entanglements elsewhere and the heedless warmongering that flares up (as can be seen in the comment sections on this site, despite it ostensibly catering to people who are sceptical of power/governments) whenever one of these wars start – which inevitably peters out and is then swept under the rug (as is currently being done with Iraq, Syria and Libya, among others).
The US and UK troops killed remarkably few people in Iraq. The vast majority of those who have died have been killed by other Muslims for the crime of being the wrong kind of Muslim.
According to whom? You? The US/UK Governments? I’m SURE Abu Ghraib is also accounted for in your statement and whatever numbers you have (if you have them) are 100% true and transparent.
Let’s also not forget, the Iraqis managed to not kill each other (Saddam excluded obviously) before you opened the shooting-season with an illegal war no one has (conspicuously) been jailed (or executed) for.
If the Iranians/Russians/Chinese assassinated the US president and reduced Washington to rubble, I somehow doubt you’d be blaming the republicans and democrats if a civil war broke out thereafter. As such, it’s unbelievable that you’re trying to put the consequences of an ILLEGAL WAR (which seems to be super pertinent when it’s the Russians invading, but totally fine when it’s the Anglos) on the Iraqis, as if it was their idea to be “bombed back into the stone age” (as the phrase went).
The US didn’t even bother to create the pretext of backing some “good guys” until afterwards, much as you seem to be trying to whitewash this as something other than an atrocity and war crime(s) committed by the US/UK after the fact.
Shame on you.
According to whom? You? The US/UK Governments? I’m SURE Abu Ghraib is also accounted for in your statement and whatever numbers you have (if you have them) are 100% true and transparent.
Let’s also not forget, the Iraqis managed to not kill each other (Saddam excluded obviously) before you opened the shooting-season with an illegal war no one has (conspicuously) been jailed (or executed) for.
If the Iranians/Russians/Chinese assassinated the US president and reduced Washington to rubble, I somehow doubt you’d be blaming the republicans and democrats if a civil war broke out thereafter. As such, it’s unbelievable that you’re trying to put the consequences of an ILLEGAL WAR (which seems to be super pertinent when it’s the Russians invading, but totally fine when it’s the Anglos) on the Iraqis, as if it was their idea to be “bombed back into the stone age” (as the phrase went).
The US didn’t even bother to create the pretext of backing some “good guys” until afterwards, much as you seem to be trying to whitewash this as something other than an atrocity and war crime(s) committed by the US/UK after the fact.
Shame on you.
The US and UK troops killed remarkably few people in Iraq. The vast majority of those who have died have been killed by other Muslims for the crime of being the wrong kind of Muslim.
The US/UK war machine – which also created the conditions for the current state of affairs. This shouldn’t be a surprise after the murdering of over a million civilians and allowing Isis to grow in power next door (what could go wrong? Oh wait…).
Apparently forever-wars are a perversely popular thing in the Anglosphere, judging from the never-ending entanglements elsewhere and the heedless warmongering that flares up (as can be seen in the comment sections on this site, despite it ostensibly catering to people who are sceptical of power/governments) whenever one of these wars start – which inevitably peters out and is then swept under the rug (as is currently being done with Iraq, Syria and Libya, among others).
Who is this “we”? The locals seem quite capable of causing destruction themselves.
And we learned nothing, and are destroying another place by war now.