At last, Iraq falls apart

By Mufid Abdulla:

Mosul this week

With the unfolding tragedy of Syria and the undermining of the opposition to the Assad regime by Islamist groups, it became plain that it was wishful thinking to think that ISIS, the strongest of the Islamist groups, would just fade away. In the past few days ISIS has made extraordinary advances within Iraq, including capturing Mosul, the country’s second biggest city, where a much bigger force of the Iraqi army simply turned and fled.

Our sources in Dubai have contacts with Iraqi ex-Baathists who have confirmed that a big section of the ISIS forces in Iraq are connected to former supporters of the Saddam regime, including ex-Baathist generals and lieutenants who supervised the attack on Mosul. For the Kurds, with Article 140 of the constitution effectively dead, the ISIS advance and Iraqi army retreat has provided a good opportunity and necessity for them to take back the ‘disputed territories’ which they lost a decade ago. Kurdish military leaders from both the PUK and KDP have organised the takeover of the disputed areas, including Kirkuk and Khanakin, etc. to prevent them falling to ISIS. The Iraqi forces left behind a huge amount of arms for the Kurds when they fled the scene. The Kurdish response is a powerful challenge to the Iraqi government’s nominal control of the area. But our sources have confirmed to us that the Iraqi army set up by the Nuri Maliki government has collapsed morally and militarily.

Kurds are in a more powerful position now that Kurdish oil is reaching the world market and Kurds have proved to the Nuri Maliki government that selling oil is much easier than selling cucumbers and tomatoes! Sources close to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have confirmed to us that a unilateral declaration of indepedendence of a Kurdish state may be imminent and that this was a main reason for Masud Barzani’s recent visit to Europe.

Latest events show that Nuri Maliki will become irrelevant to the overall future of Iraq, an artificial country which is now falling apart. Not only the Kurds, but also the Sunni Arabs in cities such as Mosul, Anbar and Tikrit have had enough of Maliki and, after almost 11 years, the Iraqi government still hasn’t got it right. Even Maliki’s close allies, such as the USA and Iran, could not save him from the humiliation of the fall of several cities into the hands of allegedly fundamentalist forces. Washington’s very muted reaction has surprised many observers. It indicates that Iraq no longer occupies a key strategic place in US foreign policy, or basically that the USA is ready to countenance Sunni ex-Baathists, such as Ezat Douri, controlling these Sunni areas instead of Nuri Maliki’s forces. However, there is also great anxiety in the West about the forces of ISIS and how far they could destabilise the whole region: for example, what if they do not not stop and go to Jordan next?