Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani has dug trenches in the territories his Peshmergas forces have captured from Islamic State (IS) militants in northern Iraq and vowed that the area will not be returned to Iraq and will instead be part of a future independent Kurdish state. Barzani has also announced that there will be no need for a referendum on Kurdish self-determination, even though he had previously often promised to hold such a referendum before declaring the Kurdish region's separation from the rest of Iraq. Barzani's independence drive reached fever pitch last week as the campaign to retake the northern Iraqi city of Mosul from IS militants shifted into top gear amid fears that the liberation of Iraq's second-largest city would trigger a regional geopolitical struggle. However, opposition to Barzani's leadership is also mounting to the extent that some rival Kurdish parties and lawmakers are considering asking Baghdad to cut ties with Barzani's administration and deal directly with Kurdistan's separate governorates. The deepening political divisions in the region, sparked by power struggles, economic deterioration, mismanagement and regional interference, are expected to take their toll on the Iraqi Kurds' long-held dream of statehood. Last week, Aram Sheikh Mohamed, the Kurdish deputy speaker of the Iraqi parliament and a senior official in the opposition Change Movement (Gorran), called on the Baghdad government to channel the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) shares of oil revenues to the provincial administrations of the Kurdish provinces. “As long as the oil deals [Baghdad signed with the KRG] are not implemented, Baghdad should send the KRG's budget directly to the provinces,” Mohamed said in a statement. The proposal, welcomed by many anti-Barzani groups and Kurdish MPs, could be translated into a breaking away from the autonomous KRG and throw the already turbulent region into further uncertainty. The row comes as Barzani's ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) remains locked in a dispute with other political parties over what many Kurds believe is Barzani's autocratic rule and his administration's corruption and inefficiency. For weeks now, civil servants have been taking to the streets of Sulaimaniya, Kurdistan's second-largest city, which is under opposition control, in order to demand that the government pay their salaries which have been suspended for months. The protesters have threatened to take their case to Baghdad, a precedent which would be a severe blow to the KRG and its claim to the full and sole representation of the Iraqi Kurds. The Kurds in northern Iraq have enjoyed semi-independent status since the overthrow of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003. In addition to having their own parliament, government and armed forces (the Peshmergas), the Kurds also export their own oil independently from Baghdad. But the KRG has been in deadlock recently, and Barzani, his family and his party have been accused of trying to take complete control of the region's political, economic and military affairs. Barzani, who has led the enclave for most of the past two decades and has been KRG president since 2005, refused to step down after his term in office expired last year. He has also blocked the region's parliament from passing a constitution and new election law drafted in a bid to limit his power and give Kurdistan parliamentary rule. The conflict escalated in October last year when Barzani's government abruptly fired opposition ministers, and the region's security forces prevented the parliament's speaker from entering the city of Erbil, virtually blocking the assembly from meeting. The crisis disrupted the region's politics and pitted Barzani's KDP against almost all the other Kurdish groups, including the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a long-time partner in the government. The recent escalation, however, comes as Barzani has been readying himself to exploit the offensive in Mosul in order to shore up his popularity by nurturing the idea that Kurdistan's independence is closer than ever. Last week, Barzani told a gathering in Bashiqa, a newly liberated town near Mosul put under KRG control, that he no longer believed a referendum was necessary to seal Kurdish secession from Iraq. The move would mean that Kurdistan's independence could be declared unilaterally by the KRG, even though it lacks legitimacy and support from other Kurdish parties. Barzani also reiterated that the KRG would keep control of huge swathes of territory seized by the Peshmergas following IS advances in summer 2014 and stretching from the border with Syria in the west to Iran in the east. Since then the KRG has built trenches and destroyed hundreds of villages in a bid to bring about demographic changes in the territories, now called “liberated areas.” “These areas were liberated by the blood of 11,500 martyrs and wounded from the Peshmergas,” Barzani said. “It is not possible after all these sacrifices to return them to federal control.” The Kurdish leader even suggested that the KRG had reached an agreement with the United States, which is leading an international coalition to help Iraq fight IS, on leaving the Peshmergas in their new positions. But with the battle for Mosul now well under way, simmering tensions between the Kurdish opposition and Barzani have begun to cast doubts on the Kurdish leader's dreams of independence. The Mosul campaign is largely seen as turning into the most important battle for the future of Iraq thus far, as many stakeholders both inside and outside the country have started to itch to play a role in post-IS Iraq. From Barzani's point of view, it might be tempting to view any failure of the Baghdad government to restore stability after the IS defeat in Mosul as an opportunity to declare an independent Kurdistan. But many analysts now believe that this might not necessarily be true and that it could even be counter-productive. Rather than helping the Kurds to achieve their long-awaited goal of an independent state in northern Iraq, the post-IS era could create further regional instability that could make Kurdistan's bid for independence even more problematic. There are two sets of reasons which will make Barzani's declaration of Kurdistan's independence by exploiting any post-Mosul political uncertainty a grave mistake and one that could cost the Iraqi Kurds their dream state. Opposition to Barzani has recently turned to demands for Sulaimaniya and Kirkuk, the two provinces under PUK control, to unilaterally disengage from Erbil, Barzani's stronghold and the capital of the KRG. On Sunday, Qubad Talabani, a senior PUK official and the son of its leader Jalal Talabani, said the Kurds should resort to a more decentralised political system that would give the provinces more power. In recent weeks Kurdistan's media have been full of reports of the political parties considering a new map for the Kurdistan Region in which there would be considerable decentralisation of power among the KRG's three provinces and Kirkuk, seized by the Peshmergas following IS advances more than two years ago. Under one formula said to be under consideration, Sulaimaniya would be left for the Change Movement to control while the PUK would be given the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Both Erbil and Dohuk would remain under Barzani's KDP, while all the four provinces would have a loose connection to each other in order to offset the disbanding of the federal government. Another formula in circulation according to the Kurdish media is to create several autonomous cantons similar to those set up by the Kurdish administration in northern Syria with one canton in Sinjar under Turkish Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) control. While the two scenarios may seem to be far-fetched, they reflect the serious difficulties facing Kurdistan's federal system under the dysfunctional government of Barzani. Moreover, the chaos expected following the battle of Mosul will make Iraq's powerful neighbours, in particular Iran and Turkey which have large Kurdish minorities and wield enormous influence in northern Iraq, more likely to block Kurdish statehood out of fears of the balkanisation of the region as a whole. There have been signs that Iran is becoming increasingly dissatisfied with Barzani's administration and has been showing support for its opponents. On 7 November, Rahim Safavi, a senior aide to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned the Erbil government against harbouring what he termed “terrorists” who could cross the border to attack Iranian towns, a charge serious enough that it could be used to justify Iranian interference. Turkey, on the other hand, has repeatedly warned that it will intervene militarily to scuttle PKK efforts to expand its presence in Iraqi Kurdistan, and it has already massed troops on its border with the region. Turkey has an estimated 2,000 troops in Bashiqa some 12 km east of Mosul, in addition to nearly a dozen military camps and outposts in Kurdistan. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has even proclaimed that his country's border extends beyond Iraq. Ankara's warm relations with Barzani were cultivated in order to ensure that the KRG remained on board in the fight against the PKK, and they were not intended to allow the Iraqi Kurds to seek independence while Turkey remains opposed to an autonomous region for its own Kurds. With all these problems plaguing Kurdistan, one may wonder if the KRG can survive the challenges and be able to fulfil its independence dream. Many are now suggesting that instead it will collapse back into provinces and cantons, as some of its political groups are saying.
