Iraqi Kurds – What Goes Around Comes Around

Erbil

By Muhamed Hassan –  Immersed Thinking:

At some stage in their recent history, Iraqi Kurds did very well in their overall socio-economic development, to the extent that they were the envy of their nearest neighbour: the Arabs. It was widely reported to be a regional economic powerhouse. Not now though.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is riddled with economic and humanitarian crises as a result of, like its sister in central Iraq, the collapse of oil prices, an influx of internally displaced persons from other areas of Iraq and Syrian refugees, and the corrosive effect of cronyism and corruption.

In 2015, the World Bank estimated that the region needs US$ 1.4 billion to stabilise the economy, with poverty rate doubling from 3.5 percent to 8.1 percent.

Furthermore, the spokesman of the Kurdistan Investment Union, Yassin Mahmud, told Basnews that about one million families in the Kurdistan Region were living in poverty, making a 12 percent rate.

To outsiders, it is all coming as a shock, simply because the petrodollar was disguising the boom years, something like the growth years in Europe and America before the bankruptcy of financial services firm, Lehman Brothers, in September 2008, making it the largest bankruptcy filing in US history.

Gone are the days when Erbil was classified as a  ‘Second Dubai’. Instead, ushers in the days when its desperate young people are uprooting in search of a better life abroad. Those who stay are agitated over the lack of jobs and the infighting among the political elites.

Thus Massoud Barzani’s preoccupation with redrawing the boundaries and declaring independence in Iraqi Kurdistan is somewhat outlandish in the face of the calamities his region is witnessing.

In the end, his leadership is behind the region’s political and financial crises. And while politics is also about making alliances, Iraqi Kurds are better off running their affairs by themselves instead of seeking favours from dubious allies, because what goes around, comes around, being victims of their own policies, and finally seeing the results of their short term thinking.

 

There are no comments yet. Be the first and leave a response!

Leave a Reply

Wanting to leave an <em>phasis on your comment?

Trackback URL https://kurdistantribune.com/iraqi-kurds-what-goes-around-comes-around/trackback/