Normally when military units are moved to a new front, such as the Iraqi and Shiite militias that were moved to areas near Kirkuk on Friday and Saturday, they require weeks of preparations before they can even consider an assault on a fortified enemy city. Yet in the early morning hours of Monday October 17, these forces drove into Kirkuk unopposed. So confident were the Iraqis of a backroom deal that they rode on top of their tanks and vehicles, relaxed as they moved to secure the governor’s office, the airport, the K1 military bases, and the city’s downtown. Although some very limited sporadic fighting occurred, these were probably Kurdish volunteers or a few Peshmerga who had not gotten the order to withdraw from their leaders.
As far as we can tell, the Kurdish route out of the disputed territories in Iraq began with a backroom deal between some factions of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Iraqi-Iranians. The arrival of Qassem Soleimani (Iran’s military and strategic mastermind) in Kirkuk and Sulaimani on the weekend is not likely to have been a coincidence. In all likelihood it was he who threatened (possibly with assassination) and cajoled the faction of the PUK that broke ranks and began the Kurdish retreat.
Kurdish civilians pelted the retreating Peshmerga with rocks as they left Kirkuk. Video showed brave PUK Peshmerga weeping at the orders their superiors had given them.
With the united Kurdish military front broken and a good chunk of their allied military forces suddenly in retreat, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) probably received a message from Baghdad around this time, pointing out they were alone and could either join the retreat or face the consequences. They quickly followed the PUK, surrendering Sinjar, Makhmour, Gwer and the small parts of Kirkuk that they had been responsible for.
The leaders who had promised their people to defend Kurdistan and its supposed heart (Kirkuk) told their men to leave the field without firing a shot. This could not have been the Kurdish plan following the referendum. The Kurdish retreat was instead the result of leaving political parties and dynastic families in charge of the Peshmerga instead of unifying them under one command – the Ministry of Peshmerga.
All of Kurdistan’s ruling parties and especially the KDP share the blame for this, as well as a more generalized failure to build institutions that could replace fiefdoms and family oligopolies. Qassem Soleimani and Baghdad were thus able to focus on the Kurds’ divisions and weakest points – which in this case was the splintered PUK in the wake of Jalal Talabani’s demise – and quickly unravel Kurdistan.
If the Kurds had remained united, their most likely strategy following the referendum could have been successful. Facing a united Kurdish military front in the disputed territories, Prime Minister Abadi might well have chosen not to send his forces in. If the Hashd al-Shaabi insisted on going up against the Kurds alone, they would have most likely faced a serious setback. Even if both the Iraqi forces and the Shiite militias attacked Kirkuk and other areas, the Kurds would have only had to hold long enough for outside actors to insist on a ceasefire. Without air support, the Iraqi advance would have proven much more difficult than their offensives in Fallujah, Ramadi, Mosul and other ISIS-held towns. Even with air support, Baghdad and its Iranian-Iraqi militias often took weeks to capture even small towns with only a handful of isolated jihadis defending them.
By making the price of military action too high for Mr. Abadi (a price which would have quickly included an end to American military aid), Baghdad would have been forced to negotiate. In much the same way as the heroic, stubborn and solitary defense of Kobani eventually forced Washington to come to the aid of even the PKK-affiliated Syrian Kurds, Iraqi Kurds would have earned help from Washington much more quickly. They might have even gained respect from Baghdad.
If instead the Peshmerga are not permitted by their leaders to defend Kurdistan for even one day, how are others supposed to come to Kurdistan’s aid? How could U.S. senators and congressmen like John McCain, Chuck Hagel and Marco Rubio have time to mobilize the U.S. government? How could Europeans or others find a way to help in time when the Iraqi army and Iranian-Iraqi militias are just permitted to drive right into Kirkuk and the rest of the disputed territories? If the Kurds in Iraq cannot stand up united and on their own for even a moment, no one can stand behind them.
All this is now water under the bridge, unfortunately. If Iraqi Kurds are to look to the future, they might start with introspection and more serious reforms and consolidation of their political parties, institutions and regional government in general. On the Iraqi Arab side, Prime Minister Abadi now possesses some serious political capital and credibility. There should now exist little to stop him from making all the reforms he promised since 2014. He is now strong enough to offer the Kurds and Sunnis power sharing and respect for all the Iraqi constitution’s articles that Baghdad violated since 2005.
Whether or not Mr. Abadi proves magnanimous in his victory will say a lot about what kind of man Rex Tillerson and Brett McGurk have sided with. The first signs are not all good: the new Arab mayor of Kirkuk that Abadi illegally appointed did not even permit the use of Kurdish in his first press conference. Hashd al-Shaabi militias roam the disputed territories and loot houses and threaten Kurds (some 90,000 of whom have fled already). Will Mr. Abadi and others in Baghdad feel sufficiently appeased by the surrender of the disputed territories, or will they decide to try and forcefully assert Baghdad’s authority in pre-2003 Kurdistan as well?
David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since 2010. He holds the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and is the author of numerous publications on the Kurds and the Middle East.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
