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Kurdistan beyond Iraq - by Dlawer Ala'Aldeen
The Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by the former US secretary of state James A Baker is scheduled to report on its recommendations in January 2007. It is expected to propose a "three-in-one" partition of Iraq, dividing the country into Sunni, Shi'a, and Kurdish entities. This is likely to be endorsed by President Bush.
Such a proposal, as long as it includes Kirkuk and other Arabised (hence disputed) territories within Kurdistan, will no doubt be welcomed by the Kurds - anything less will be rejected violently. The Shi'a response will be mixed. Mohamad Baqir al-Hakim's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) will approve but only with modifications. Muqtada al-Sadr, and likeminded Shi'a extremist groups, will reject it out of hand. Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and his Da'wa party will be in a serious dilemma, namely how to choose between principle and real politics. As for the Sunni Arabs, who once had the whole of Iraq and now face the prospect of being left with the poorest federal entity, they will protest, threaten and eventually succumb.
Is an independent Kurdistan viable? The answer is, most certainly, yes. Kurdistan is economically self-sufficient, more so than many member-states of the United Nations. The international climate is also more favourable. In the past, Turkey, Iran, Syria and other Arab countries have acted against progress in Kurdistan, and they were greatly aided by the fact that the United States found it in its interest to support a stronger (and anti-Iranian) Iraq at the expense of the Kurds and Shi'as. This circumstance has changed since the start of the war on terror.
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