By Dr. Pshtiwan Faraj

Sulaimani, Iraqi Kurdistan — Kurdish Policy Analysis

More than one voice has been raised in the region and talk about a number of major problems and threats that may face the region in the near future, including the threat of ending the region as an independent federal region. Among these voices are major party officials, parliamentarians, journalists and various political writers. In their view, a completely uncertain and dark future lies ahead, which could even include the destruction of the region as a semi-independent entity.

The vast majority of the Kurdistan Region's population knows the simple fact that no foreign force, including those that have been closely cooperating with the region for many years, is satisfied with the form of governance, the type of administration or the relationship between the dominant forces. These forces see and act as opponents and enemies, and all attempts to improve governance succumb to their hatred and limited political mentality. They ignore not only the internal critical voices, but also the external voices that have sustained and constantly supported them for more than two decades. “Three of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council are directly reuniting the Peshmerga forces, but they cannot do so due to internal conflict,” one writer said.

Of course, the problems are not only the problem of unification of the armed forces of the region, which prevent them from changing from a party militia to an official and unified national army, but there are many other major problems that affect the governance and the region itself. Somehow they make the picture quite bitter and the situation quite frightening. Let's focus on some of the main problems here.

The first thing we see is the inability of the regional rulers to preserve the political scene that they sold to the people of the region in general and to the outside world in particular as a democratic scene in the post-uprising world. At this level, all the institutions of governance have failed to exist and function as institutions. Neither the party nor the parliament, nor the ministries and general directorates, nor the judiciary and accountability agencies, nor the media, nor a significant part of civil society organizations, etc., exist as decision-making and independent institutions. What exists and works, what makes all the important and strategic decisions, is the limited wishes, tastes and understanding of a few narcissistic personalities within several ruling political families. They do not count on anything else beyond their psychological fluctuations, hatred and limited understanding. Anyone who has the patience to look at the region for two seconds will see and feel this tragic situation. After nearly two years of elections, neither the parliament in the most cartoonish sense, nor the KRG itself, nor any attempt to overcome this overall political paralysis. The whole of governance depends on the wishes, understandings and tastes of the first people inside and outside the government. At this level, the degree of deafness and indifference is at its highest.

Second, the above situation occurs amid a fundamental and comprehensive weakening of the region, to the extent that the region is at the mercy of Baghdad and its dominant political elite. There are many reasons for this weakness, but it is mainly due to two strategic mistakes of the regional governors. The first is the “independent economy” policy, which has both damaged relations between the region and Baghdad and put the region under a huge debt burden that is difficult to escape. The second was the strategic mistake of holding the referendum, which again damaged relations between the Kurdistan Region and Baghdad, the Kurdistan Region and its friendly foreign countries, and created a situation in which the Kurdistan Region was forced to give in to Baghdad.

Third, what is currently economically present in the region is a complete ruin. If Baghdad does not send the salaries of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), a large part of the salaried employees in the region will not be able to provide at least the basic necessities of daily life. Years of independent economy have not only placed the region in huge foreign debt, but have also forced it to hand over an important part of its main economic resources to Baghdad.

Fourth, the comprehensive division of the two ruling forces into different regional parties has made Kurdistan a target for the armies and intelligence agencies of these countries.

Fifth, amid the political devastation, the two ruling parties have brought their political differences to the point of speaking the language of civil war and betraying each other. These two forces, especially the PKK, see themselves as the eternal rulers of the region. In this rule, the PKK believes that all the main positions in the region should be under its control until the Day of Judgment and all other forces should follow it. At this level, the PKK speaks to its political subjects in the language of the nobleman, not in the language of a force that does not necessarily control all the key positions in its rule. Both the mentality that directs the conflicts and the language used in these conflicts on a daily basis are more mentality and language of conflict, division and fragmentation. A sickly blown narcissism directs all these problems.

Sixth, in the context of the existence and fattening of party militias and the disruption of the creation of a unified national army outside the power of the parties, civil war and conflict not only becomes a strong nuclear possibility, but also one of the main scenarios. All this internal narcissism, hatred and violence comes at a time when the ruling forces in the region are ready to compromise with foreign forces, most of whom are strongly opposed to the remaining of the region as a region and opposed to the remaining of Iraq as a federal system.

Seventh, all this reminds us of that sick bloody history of the 1990s, which is not far behind us. The two forces, within the no-fly zone created by the international community to protect the Kurds from Saddam Hussein's regime, launched a bloody war in 1994 that lasted for years and killed thousands of people. In those years, just as the international community justified the existence of the parliament and the KRG, they brought the armies of neighboring countries against each other. In 1998, four years after all the skirmishes, the Americans forced the leadership of the two forces closer together. Now there is no one to bring these two forces closer together, because the friends can no longer stand the permanent political threat of these two forces.

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